DEALER REFUSES TO INSTALL OAK

[littlesmokey]

Mac,
Using that logic, I shouldn't open the door and let the air escape, or open the fridge, cause the cold leaks out, or turn the vent on in the bath. Cheap means something different to me.

No, be real, OK?

Those are things that you have NO control of...you HAVE to do them. You DON"T have to burn already heated air if you don't want to, by installing an OAK.

And by YOUR logic, what the hell, we might as well open all the windows in the house in January, because we have to open the door anyway, and the frig, and turn the vent fan on....that's logic???

What's the matter? Did I punch back a little too hard and a little too fast. Seems you took the first cheap shot. Who's being absurd?

 

[imacman]

What's the matter? Did I punch back a little too hard and a little too fast. Seems you took the first cheap shot. Who's being absurd?

Quite to the contrary, your 'punches' are pretty weak, as is your argument. And what, pray tell, was the "cheap shot" I took? I was just using YOUR logic.

There's no absurd here....it's more like you have no other argument in support of your statements, and therefore, now you decide to get nasty.

You keep sending your already heated and paid for air up your stove pipe, and I'll keep mine inside.

BYE BYE

 

[CanadaClinker]

.......saving heat and $$ is a personal choice each one of us has to make on our own.... some of us buy weather stripping for around our exterior doors, timers for our bathroom fans, programmable setback thermostats for our heating units, extra heat shrink plastic for our drafty windows etc.

When installing a pellet heating unit, an OAK is a way of saving the heat (heat=$$) from being sucked back outside (if you choose to use it)....aside from the addition comfort from not pulling drafts into the house from the suction of the stove.

Some choose to do none of these things.... that's OK too .... cause 'they're' paying..... not me...... ;-)

 

[kbjelka]

I don't know how you would get that rigid Selkirk pipe around your smoke shelf in the fireplace. You'll need to use flex pipe to do the reline but it would take little to add the 2" OAK IF you really want it up the chimney like the diagram shows. At the top, you want to put 2 90 degree turns in it so that it is pointing down and away from the exhaust as well as falling rain. The diagram doesn't show that but I've seen pictures of people doing it that way. In my case (and maybe yours), there isn't enough room behind the insert to add a 90 degree elbow for the small flex to go up. It's a tight squeeze for me so I opted out of an OAK. The combustion blower is only 80 cfm on HIGH so we aren't talking nearly as much airflow as your fireplace wood insert sucked out of your house. Also, the Sante Fe is pretty 'loose' so you'll suck air out of the house even with an OAK AND when it is off, you'll suck cold air IN when you turn on the clothes dryer, exhaust hood, etc.

I agree, I don't know how the Selkirk Direct Temp pipe would be used in a masonry fireplace install. They list the Direct Temp for sidewall and through the roof installations. Masonry installs usually use flex pipe which Selkirk sells too. Do you have an ash dump on your chimney? If so you might be able to install an OAK through that. I've seen posts where people route the OAK down through the fireplace ash dump, then out the basement wall to the outside. When I decided not to get the OAK during my install I thought about routing it through the ash dump later but never got around to it. The fact that you can add the OAK later might give you enough comfort to push forward.

 

[imacman]

.......saving heat and $$ is a personal choice each one of us has to make on our own.... Some choose to do none of these things.... that's OK too .... cause 'they're' paying..... not me...... ;-)

Well said, Clinker.

 

[kbjelka]

At the risk of painting a target on myself and despite the heated discussion here, I would not let the outside air become a show stopper IMHO.

 

[sculptor]

I can't say from experience what is best but, the manufacturer recommends it and that is good enough for me. I can see the logic in installing it, and I can see the reasons why some would opt to cut corners. I guess it's up to the individual to to chose which route they want to go. I see it as there is no gamble in installing it....but there is for not doing so, so why not do it???

 

[krooser]

Aren't you the customer? Isn't the customer always right? why he would be arguing with you is beyond me. I'd find a new dealer as well, someone that is going to satisfy thier customers in which it sounds this company has no intention in doing. Can't an oak also be easily run out the clean out at the bottom of the chimney as well?? seems there would be less distance to travel saving in cost of venting??? And here is another ? about the selkirk vent. since the air intake is right next to the exhaust isn't it pulling back in "bad" air, I realize in essence it is a closed system and not coming directly into the house or anything but one would think "fresh"air would be more advantagous. (for instance, most vents say they must be x amount of feet away from any air intake into the house???? just asking...

The rain cap on the Selkirk pipe allows the exhaust to exit straight out the pipe while the intake air actually comes in from the backside of the rain cap on the "wall" or "roof" side... I'll snap a pic tomorrow.

In the year I've been on this forum it seems the OAK/non-OAK debate is slowly switching to favor the OAK installs. When I bought my stove Iasked my dealer and he recommended the OAK... no question. After prcing Dura-Vent at the local box stores and other dealers, I bought the Selkirk vent since #1 it was what my dealer stocked and #2 they sold me a "kit" but bought back the pieces I didn't use... a no-brainer in my book. The parts "buy back" actually made my install cheaper than the big box store vent would have been.

 

[yknotcarpentry]

Well, before I was a member here and read all this good stuff, I installed my englander with oak as recomended with out even thinking about it as the book said to do it. Then when a friend gave me the big E he told me it was not neccessary and he didn't have one hooked up when he was using it. So I installed it in the barn/shop without an oak. I felt the perfermance was weak at best. I just recently moved it into the house and installed an oak on it and it performs like an entirely differant stove now. why not use it?? its there, its rather cheap to install it and yes as I never thought about it before, it is pulling warm air up the chimney. might as well keep it in the house.

 

[amick780]

......I know I am cheap, but that's the whole idea, right??????

If you admit to being cheap, then you should be the 1st person to NOT want to use burn air that you already paid to heat, and send it out of the house. 8-/

Well said Macman, anyone who thinks a OAK is not needed is crazy, I just wonder if anyone relizes how much 50-80CFM is. Would anyone here in their right mind put a fan in the window in the winter and run it for 18+ hrs? I don't think so. Not using a OAK is essentialy the same thing, pulling cozy warm air constantly out of your house, and that air has to be replaced by something....which is cold air coming through all the "leaks" in the house.

 

[Xena]

Do you have an ash dump on your chimney?
If so you might be able to install an OAK through that. I've seen posts where people route
the OAK down through the fireplace ash dump, then out the basement wall to the outside.

This is a good idea if the option is available. It's what I did.
Pics in the following thread: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/33122/

 

[Dr_Drum]

Can't we all just get along?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Mike -

 

[krooser]

Can't we all just get along?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Mike -

No...we all like a good fight!

 

[Havlat24]

I had to force the folks that installed my Sante Fe to install a OAK as well. They kept saying that everytime they install one, the customer ends up ripping it out anyways. I made them put it in, telling them that I dont want to use heated air for combustion... as argumentative as they were they couldn't disagree.

 

[vgrund]

My dealer was reluctant when I mentioned it, but acquiesced when I explained that the combustion fan would exchange all the air in my house every couple of hours. Look, this is easy, do the math. Estimate the volume of air in your house in cubic feet (multiple sq ft by ceiling ht). Look up the CFM of the combustion fan. Divide the volume by the CFM. If the resulting number of minutes is not compelling, I don't know what is.

 

[tjnamtiw]

vgrund, I'm not against OAK and I would put it in if I could however, using your math, my Sante Fe combustion blower will replace my house's volume every 5 hours ... That's IF I run it on HIGH 24 hours a day. When it's not running, I would be sucking outside air back INTO my house from outside since my family seems to keep our dryer running constantly I wonder if I can get a pellet fired clothes dryer...............................

sorry, bad math the first time around.................... goes with getting to damn old.

 

[Fsappo]

That tile hearth doesnt look to code

 

[vgrund]

Really? My math was something like (3600 square feet * 8 ft) / 72 CFM = 400 minutes = 6 hours 40 minutes. OK, not quite every couple of hours, but still...

 

[Swaybar]

vgrund, I'm not against OAK and I would put it in if I could however, using your math, my Sante Fe combustion blower will replace my house's volume every 400 hours or 16 days.... That's IF I run it on HIGH 24 hours a day. When it's not running, I would be sucking outside air back INTO my house from outside since my family seems to keep our dryer running constantly I wonder if I can get a pellet fired clothes dryer...............................

Wow that is a Big House! 80CFM = 4,800 CF per Hour 400 Hours times 4,800 = 1.9 million cubic feet!

At 80CFM or 4,800 CFH it would exchange the air in my house in about 2 hours.

 

[tjnamtiw]

See my edited comments AFTER I pulled my head out of you know where.......... Just wanted to see who was awake.... Yea, right :red:

 

[tjnamtiw]

Oh, a window fan has ==== Powerful 9600 Air King 16" Window Fan - Over 2,470 CFM of Reversible Air Flow.

 

[littlesmokey]

I am not the air handling specialist some of you are, but I do know the combustion fan rating is "maximum movement" volume. In reality a good portion of the available energy is used up in sucking air through the systems of ports, baffles and chambers. I would like to know, from the more enlightened the actual volume. I know the fan in my bath vent is substantially higher than the stove, and if left on it doesn't suck the heat out of my house. I know if I leave the spray booth exhaust fan on in the shop @ 7,200 cfm, it gets chilled quickly. I also know my air filter system will exchange the air in the shop six times an hour. Those are all multi horse power units.

I admit I do not have a manufactured OAK, but I have a little cheater. I have a grill plate into the a dead air space running to the attic directly behind the stove. I have no idea how much of the combustion air comes from there. I don't have a dryer or other air drain in my place, but it stays toasty without a special system. I got used to the extra air idea from burning wood, and seeing my friends building compress when he first turned his spray booth on. Building was too tight and blower was way to big. We had to cut the main off, because the door was vacuumed sealed and we couldn't get to the off button.

I have a leaky house. Built around 1875 in Utah I can't seal it up, so I would not even need the cheater to avoid a negative air situation.

Long ago on this thread I asked, "How is an OAK non-install a deal killer?"

 

[tjnamtiw]

Yea, littlesmokey, I'm sure that 80 cfm rating on the blower is 'free flow'. It's probably a lot less being choked down by just pulling from the burn pot and the other leaks. This is the eternal question that will never be fully answered. It's a do what you want solution. One of these days, I'll get the inspiration to run an OAK out my ash dump for the Castile IF it isn't sitting over the hole, which I suspect it is because the installer removed the ash dump door in the floor of the fireplace. I'll get ambitious some day and pull it out and look. Probably at the end of the season when I do the spring cleaning.

 

[Pellet-King]

Why do you need fresh air?, cause your home is super air tight?
At least with the above setup it would be prewarmed air coming in not just cold outside air which would be stupid to waste heat when it's -10 out.
But any exhaust leak you could have a serious CO problem

 

[jtp10181]

Wow... where did the OP go? This thread was totally hi-jacked.

Anyway... to the OP, yeah we have done one exactly like that. We ran alum for the OAK and stuck the cap tight down to the top plate. The exhaust we switched over to rigid pipe near the top and extended it up 2ft above the OAK cap to be safe. Was not a huge deal as far as I know. You should find out from the dealer if they don't want to do it due to a problem, or just because its going to be more work than they feel like doing.

IMO, you don't want the OAK anyway, if you don't run the stove 24/7 the OAK leaks cold air into the house, it is not air tight in any way.