Does anyone have a wind chimney cap and found it helped? We have a Jotul F500. We wanted to have a fire tonight but we are having strong wind gusts and it was blowing smoke back down the chimney and we were getting wisps of smoke coming out of the stove. My house smells like smoke now. The winds blow in from the north and that is the side of the house where our chimney is. We had to put the fire out. I'm hoping if we get a wind cap that will help. Anyone have experience with this?
Do wind caps work?
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Ctwoodtick
Minister of Fire
I’m not a chimney pro, but I would think that once the fire has been established, windy conditions should not be causing smoke in the house. The 2 times I had that happen were upon startup and then on reloading. Pros with good experience will chime in to help more though. How are you starting the fires?
Yes it was when we were first getting the fire going. We are not pros by a long shot. We are not full time burners. I just didn't want smoke to keep smelling up the house so I made my husband put it out. Maybe I should have just let it go until it was good and roaring. We put 2 pieces of fat wood north south and then 2 logs east west on top and then another 2 fat wood pieces north south and 2 logs east west. We threw some balls of paper in and 2 starter cubes and lit it. Normally we don't have any issues. There was one other time we had issues with wind. There was also one time where the draft was taking time to start where we had some smoke wisps but once the draft started it was fine.
MoDoug
Minister of Fire
I'm a rookie wood burner. I don't have a wind cap, I have the Supervent deluxe rain cap (pictured below) and I didn't have any issues. My chimney faces northwest and is 11 feet above my roof line, so it took the full brunt of the wind, and it was some serious wind yesterday. Maybe there's something else going on; is your chimney high enough, and does it clear the peak of your house? Maybe where your house sits, is it up on a hill or down hill?
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Might try cracking open the nearest window or walk door when starting up. May help or eliminate your problem. Worth a try.
I’ll try to give as much info as I know. Maybe it will help. We are under wind advisory. Winds 20-30 mph gusting 40-50. We are in a mountain community. The land slopes up hill at the front of the house and downhill at the back of the house.
Stove is Jotul F500. There is a fresh air kit. There is double wall pipe that comes off the stove and that goes through the ceiling. I believe there might be a 30 degree elbow. I am not sure how tall the chimney is. I will include pictures. You can see the chimney on right side of the back of the house through the trees. You can see the chimney on the left showing over the roof in the picture of the front of the house and I included picture of the stove.
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Stove is Jotul F500. There is a fresh air kit. There is double wall pipe that comes off the stove and that goes through the ceiling. I believe there might be a 30 degree elbow. I am not sure how tall the chimney is. I will include pictures. You can see the chimney on right side of the back of the house through the trees. You can see the chimney on the left showing over the roof in the picture of the front of the house and I included picture of the stove.
I know some members have had success with the wind cap if wind is the only problem. I see you get ready for Christmas in North Carolina.
MoDoug
Minister of Fire
Nice place and setting, and lots of wood. The stove looks new and professionally installed. I wonder if adding another section of pipe would help. Have you talked to the installer about getting smoke in the house?
MoDoug thanks. We haven't spoken to anyone about it yet. I wanted to educate myself a little better to what the problem could be. We started using the stove January 2018. It was installed by our builder. I want to make sure that we get the correct fix. I'm just not knowledgeable enough to know what the correct fix is. Will a wind cap solve the problem? Is the chimney not tall enough? There is no clogged screening on the cap because there is no screening. Have had 2 birds get in the stove. DH and I won't be getting on the roof. When we were a bit younger we would have. So if I can get someone out here to deal with it i want to make sure it actually fixes the issue so we can use our stove under high wind conditions without wisps of smoke coming out of the of the stove.
After Burner
Member
I live at 8,000 feet elevation in Colorado and 60 mile per hour, and greater, winds are common. We have two wood stoves and the wind used to cause issues with smoke coming down the chimney. I installed Vacu-Stack caps on both wood stoves and have never had another issue. Now, when the wind gusts, the Vacu-Stack creates a stonger draft. You can see it in the stove. When wind hits the the stack, draft increases and pulls more air through the wood stove. On a windy day, I close the stove down a little more because of this.
These caps are great and they work falwlessly -- also no maintenance issues since there are no moving parts. Just clean them once each season.
Hope this helps.
These caps are great and they work falwlessly -- also no maintenance issues since there are no moving parts. Just clean them once each season.
Hope this helps.
I live in Colorado as well, 8500 ft. Winds easily can hit 70 to 80 mph with higher sometimes though not often. I had to make sure both my chimney pipes extend well above the nearby roof ridges. I believe I've read that one wants the pipe to extend at least 4' above any part of the roof within 10' horizontal distance from the top of the pipe. I may be off on that, it's what I seem to recall.
Anyway, I have one pipe within 6' of a ridge and the pipe extends about 8' above that. Zero problems.
The other pipe used to end about 4' above the ridge but was maybe 15' from it. I had some problems there and added more pipe, which fixed that trouble.
Pipe is expensive, and adding some may require another set of cables or whatever you use to stabilize the pipe in winds. However, it's a one-time fix...if it works. It did for me. Those higher winds can really swirl and tumble around and cause either draft problems or smoking issues.
I've never used a "wind cap" so cannot say how they work. Might be a quick and simple fix if they do work.
Anyway, I have one pipe within 6' of a ridge and the pipe extends about 8' above that. Zero problems.
The other pipe used to end about 4' above the ridge but was maybe 15' from it. I had some problems there and added more pipe, which fixed that trouble.
Pipe is expensive, and adding some may require another set of cables or whatever you use to stabilize the pipe in winds. However, it's a one-time fix...if it works. It did for me. Those higher winds can really swirl and tumble around and cause either draft problems or smoking issues.
I've never used a "wind cap" so cannot say how they work. Might be a quick and simple fix if they do work.
After Burner and SteveKG. Thank you. I think I may start with the cap and then if we still have issues add more piping.
MoDoug
Minister of Fire
vatmark, looking at your pictures, it looks like the chimney has at least a couple feet clearance on your lower roof line, but the roof line to the right of your chimney (looking at the front of the house) appears level with your cap.? Difficult to say, pictures can be deceiving. What direction is the back of the house facing? What direction is the wind most predominate? The back looks like it has good wind flow, the other sides not so much with all the trees.
MoDoug the back of the house faces east. The winds usually come from the north. We burned last night and had no issues at all but there was no crazy wind. I’m not sure if the chimney is higher than the other roof. There’s no way to get a good angle to see.
black smoke signals
Feeling the Heat
My experience using Vacu -stack in my B/K stove (coil spring t/stat) with high winds I couldn’t start a fire too much wind in the box. After finally getting it going (big mistake) the t/stat at fully closed the wind would pick up the flapper. I pitched the V/S cap went back to the flattop rain cap. I’m not wanting to install a draft inducer into center masonry chimney where it would probably cure my problems. ?
Wind directional caps do work!
We live on the coast of Massachusetts and get substantial wind. I have referenced Hearth.com through the years to help me troubleshoot a persistent wind issue with our Jotul 602 with 6 inch double wall Duratech chimney. It is a straight run, 10 feet from any roof line. But the shape of our house at ten feet away does have a 12 ft vertical wall to the south that the chimney exit doesn't clear. I assumed this was creating turbulent air and pushing back against the wind and essentially blocking the exit of the chimney.
All of which was manageable except for when the wind came from the North... which is the direction the worst storms come from where we are. The stove had terrible draw unless I opened the front vent fully during northerly winds and with gust above 20 mph, the stove would send smoke and carbon monoxide back into the house (especially during start up), which was always traumatizing and miserable on the coldest days of winter. We developed a process of quickly removing all of the fuel out of the stove, moving outside, putting water on it and shutting the stove down when the wind picked up. Eventually we religiously checked the wind report days before and would avoid the stove completely with blankets and space heaters.
I attempted every remedy that I could find online to fix the problem. Better seasoned wood, opened windows near and away from the stove, extended the chimney run by 6 ft, and added a Vacu-stack chimney cap. None of which worked. The only remedy left was to continue to add to the chimney until it cleared the southern roof line, which would mean the exterior chimney run would need to be 12 feet, which would have nearly impossible to secure and more importantly, would have looked ridiculous. I assumed we had chosen the worst spot in the house for the stove and that it would be a problem every time the Northerly winds came along for the foresseable future.
Long story short, I decided to make one last ditch effort and ordered a stainless steel pivoting wind directional cap (because of the double wall chimney pipe I am using, I was required to buy an adapter too.) from Luxury Metals. It arrived yesterday as Winter storm Orlena was hitting, but the snow hadn’t started to fall. I made the questionable decision to get up on the roof and switch out the vacustack with the new pivoting cap. I am very happy to say that I am sitting next to a wondrously warm stove with essentially perfect draw in consistent 35 mph winds/45 mph gusts. I even held a piece of smoldering paper 6 inches from the open firebox and the smoke was drawn into the stove and out the chimney. (Maybe too much draw?)
I am still perplexed as to why the Vacu-stack provided almost no change and the directional cap essentially solved our problem. It might eliminate my assumption that the wall 12 ft southerly wall was causing the primary issue… but unsure. I have heard stories of the Vacu-stack caps working perfectly for others and was attracted to the “no moving parts” aspect, but I could have bought four pivoting caps for the amount I sunk into the other failed remedies.
It definitely is fascinating that every situation seems to need a different solution and glad this forum exists. Just so happy that the search was worthwhile and hope this can be helpful for others with this frustrating problem.
Link to the successful cap page:
www.luxurymetals.com
We live on the coast of Massachusetts and get substantial wind. I have referenced Hearth.com through the years to help me troubleshoot a persistent wind issue with our Jotul 602 with 6 inch double wall Duratech chimney. It is a straight run, 10 feet from any roof line. But the shape of our house at ten feet away does have a 12 ft vertical wall to the south that the chimney exit doesn't clear. I assumed this was creating turbulent air and pushing back against the wind and essentially blocking the exit of the chimney.
All of which was manageable except for when the wind came from the North... which is the direction the worst storms come from where we are. The stove had terrible draw unless I opened the front vent fully during northerly winds and with gust above 20 mph, the stove would send smoke and carbon monoxide back into the house (especially during start up), which was always traumatizing and miserable on the coldest days of winter. We developed a process of quickly removing all of the fuel out of the stove, moving outside, putting water on it and shutting the stove down when the wind picked up. Eventually we religiously checked the wind report days before and would avoid the stove completely with blankets and space heaters.
I attempted every remedy that I could find online to fix the problem. Better seasoned wood, opened windows near and away from the stove, extended the chimney run by 6 ft, and added a Vacu-stack chimney cap. None of which worked. The only remedy left was to continue to add to the chimney until it cleared the southern roof line, which would mean the exterior chimney run would need to be 12 feet, which would have nearly impossible to secure and more importantly, would have looked ridiculous. I assumed we had chosen the worst spot in the house for the stove and that it would be a problem every time the Northerly winds came along for the foresseable future.
Long story short, I decided to make one last ditch effort and ordered a stainless steel pivoting wind directional cap (because of the double wall chimney pipe I am using, I was required to buy an adapter too.) from Luxury Metals. It arrived yesterday as Winter storm Orlena was hitting, but the snow hadn’t started to fall. I made the questionable decision to get up on the roof and switch out the vacustack with the new pivoting cap. I am very happy to say that I am sitting next to a wondrously warm stove with essentially perfect draw in consistent 35 mph winds/45 mph gusts. I even held a piece of smoldering paper 6 inches from the open firebox and the smoke was drawn into the stove and out the chimney. (Maybe too much draw?)
I am still perplexed as to why the Vacu-stack provided almost no change and the directional cap essentially solved our problem. It might eliminate my assumption that the wall 12 ft southerly wall was causing the primary issue… but unsure. I have heard stories of the Vacu-stack caps working perfectly for others and was attracted to the “no moving parts” aspect, but I could have bought four pivoting caps for the amount I sunk into the other failed remedies.
It definitely is fascinating that every situation seems to need a different solution and glad this forum exists. Just so happy that the search was worthwhile and hope this can be helpful for others with this frustrating problem.
Link to the successful cap page:
Chimney Caps | Copper Chimney Caps, Steel Chimney Caps & Furnace Caps | Luxury Metals
High quality chimney caps in copper, stainless, and galvanized steel to protect your chimney and prevent downdraft
www.luxurymetals.com
Plumisland I am glad you solved your wind issue. This is perfect timing. We have had wind issues and I have posted here in the past about it. I've been torn on what to do. We are not full time burners but do use the stove quite a bit when it gets real cold here. We have been using it the past few days and things were fine until the winds came. Like you they come from the north and our chimney is on the north side of the house. Yesterday evening when the winds picked up I smelled smoke several times. I got no sleep last night because I constantly kept checking on the stove. I will not light it up today because we are still under a wind warning: Northwest winds 20-30 mph with gusts up to 60. I have thought about vacustack but see some people say it becomes an issue with cleaning and some people said their draft was affected. I also thought about a directional but heard they make a lot of noise. I'm hesitant to add more chimney sections for fear it won't solve the problem and we end up with this large stack on the roof for nothing.
Love this forum, lots of people dealing with the same finicky issues I am as a new owner. We have other issues to deal with, like leaky gaskets on a new stove, but this is another. Today we had the CO detectors wake me up with an overnight burn going and high winds. I'm assuming the high wind shoved the CO back down my chimney and into the house. Haven't had this problem except this once and that high wind was the only difference. I have a pretty decent draft up the chimney most of the time but may need to check out a vacu-stak or directional. Do the directional ones pivot with wind direct changes?
When I worked residential construction on the WA coast many years ago, we always put those pivoting, "rooster tail" caps on all wood stoves, fireplaces, etc. in order to solve the wind problems. They always worked well, however, they do require maintenance, as the bearings on them will get gunked up with soot, and will need cleaned. They usually just have a brass bushing type bearing so easily cleaned, re-lube with graphite. I, also, used to have one here when we had the old Fisher stove for those many years. It wasn't needed particularly, but always worked fine, and did need regurlarly cleaning, along with the chimney on that Fisher unit.
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