My stove is connected to an outside air intake which conveniently enters from the wall directly behind the stove (it's on an exterior wall). It's a very short distance - about a foot to the rear bottom intake of the stove and it works fairly well... except in previous years when I had no OAK hooked up the secondaries burn seemed a little more intense. It seems like when it's super cold outside, the short distance of the 4" flex duct is dumping cold air directly into the secondary intake channel and not allowing it to get up to temperature for efficient secondary combustion.
Instead of going directly from wall to bottom rear of stove, I was considering looping the flex duct behind the back of the stove and then back down into the intake on the bottom of the stove. So from wall-to-stove instead of: |__| it would look more like: |_( )_|
The argument is that this should help warm up the incoming air for better secondary combustion
The counter-argument is that the extra distance added by the loop and the fact that heated air wants to rise or might be trapped at the top of this short vertical loop could reduce the draw and potentially cause issues (the counter-counter-argument is that a 4" tube seems generally oversized for a woodstove).
What are your thoughts?
Instead of going directly from wall to bottom rear of stove, I was considering looping the flex duct behind the back of the stove and then back down into the intake on the bottom of the stove. So from wall-to-stove instead of: |__| it would look more like: |_( )_|
The argument is that this should help warm up the incoming air for better secondary combustion
The counter-argument is that the extra distance added by the loop and the fact that heated air wants to rise or might be trapped at the top of this short vertical loop could reduce the draw and potentially cause issues (the counter-counter-argument is that a 4" tube seems generally oversized for a woodstove).
What are your thoughts?
