It took me two whole days, but I finally figured out how to work our new house’s old-timey stove.
It’s the first time I’ve fired it since we bought the house this summer. This thing is a lot more complicated than it seems. It has a main damper and a bypass damper, a separate air intake and it hadn’t been fired up for 6 months so the flue was full of cold air and humidity.
But crucially, it sits inside a northern house that’s so well insulated it’s airtight enough for the fire to pull a vacuum inside the house, snuff itself out and create enough of a backdraft to smoke up the entire house in seconds when all the windows are closed.
It took me a while to figure out how to adjust the dampers, stop the air extractor and crack a window open when I add a fresh log to avoid turning the whole family into smoked meat 🙂 But now the flue is warm, the draft is going good and the house is sitting at a balmy 82 degrees while it’s freezing outside.
Nice!
I suppose the soot is understandable given the level of use and an airtight house. I would think having an external air intake would help with that.
I wondered about the chimney height because I know masonry fireplaces have a minimum height requirement of ~3m(10ft). We have a huge double sided brick fireplace with a chimney that’s right at the minimum but oddly enough we never have any draft issues.
I’m not sure what the minimum chimney height is for stoves. Might be worth looking at having it extended by a couple feet or adding a draft inducer fan if you plan to burn a lot of wood.