Hey Folks,
Hoping for a little advice on improving my wood-stove efficiency.
Long story short I was running a little 14" woodstove, vented out the window with 4" stovepipe. There is a 2' section coming out of the stove, 90degree elbow, 1' section going out the window, 90degree outside with 2 2' sections going straight up above the bus roof. This worked quite well, however the major drawback is that I could get a max of about 2.5 hours burn time before I'd have to reload it, or risk having to relight it. Also it would loose it's heat pretty quickly after going out.
I was given a better/larger woodstove which I have moved in and hooked up. It holds heat a lot longer with the firebricks, and I can increase the burn time by a couple hours and it holds coals much longer. However after a couple of -15(c) nights, I see there are some problems... I can't get it burning hot enough. It stalls out at the back where unburnt material piles up. I have to constantly move stuff from the back to the front. I also get a lot of blowblack and now I seem to be getting a lot of creosote build up, it's dripping off the rain cap. I have some very nicely cured Ironwood which I can't seem to get going well at all now. Seems like I need to increase the air draw.
The new stove has taller legs and uses 6" stovepipe so now I only have a 1' section coming out of the top which connects to the 90degree, then connects to a 6" to 4" reducer, which then connects to the existing 4" pipe going out the window, and the existing oustide setup of a 90degree and 4' stack. Sorry I don't have a photo of this.
The big difference from the old setup being, 1' out of the top of the stove instead of 2'. And then using a reducer to go from 6" down the 4".
Seems like there are a couple things happening which have slowed down the air flow. Hoping to make a quick change so I can still use it for winter, but the cold weather had already arrived. I'm thinking if I remove the reducer and repipe the whole thing with 6", that might help? I'm still also concerned that my problem could be going down to 1' before I make that first 90 degree turn?
I'm too scared to cut a hole in the roof, although I realize a straight vertical stack would be my ideal.
(old stove)
(outside)
(new stove)
Linear Mode
