Wood Stove add-ons?

[SkunkedAgain]

We've got a wood stove at our cabin. The bottom section of the stove pipe is splitting so I need to replace it in the next year or so. While at the local hardware store, I noticed that they sell a couple of add-ons that supposedly improve a stove's efficiency. In general our stove works great. The only improvements I'd ever want would be for it to heat quicker in the dead of winter and to burn longer over a winter night.

Below is a picture of our stove and below that are pictures that I took at the store, of a heat reclaimer and a damper. Would either of these benefit our setup and do any of you actually use these?

[riverview]

I have a similar stove in my house. I would add a manual dampner and a eco fan. a eco fan is a heat driven fan that sits on top of the stove and blows across the stove pipe.

[SkunkedAgain]

Would the damper or heat reclaimer lead to more creosote since cooler air is entering the stove pipe?

The eco fan sounds like a good idea. Where did you find one?

[Tom7227]

The damper will help you keep a more consistent fire going. It lets more air into the chimney if you are burning a real hot fire or if wind is creating a vacumn in the chimney.

Forget the heat reclaimer. It will provide you with a lot of 'extra' heat but creates a strong risk of creosote buildup. A woodburner needs to have about 300 degree exhaust to avoid a buildup. The reclaimer could very well drop the temp too much so that you get the creosote and possibly even cut it back so much that you screw up the draw and end up with the smoke backing up on you.

As far as getting more heat - consider adding some sort of fan to the rig or set a fan in a corner blowing lightly over the stove. I don't see any way for you to cut back on the air that gets to the fire. If you do have it what you want to do is burn a pretty hot fire to get things going and then cut back on the air inlets after about a half hour and let the wood burn slowly. Done correctly you should be able to keep it going over night.

When I was using a stove to heat the house I had a thermometer that had a magnet on it attached to the stove pipe. It was marked with temps and colors giving you an idea of how hot the exhaust was. You want to get it hot enough to work properly but not so hot as to create a risk of a chimney fire.

[Tom7227]

You also should consider losing that basket you have behind the stove. Unless that stove has a double wall you very likely are getting things a bit hot back there. You might be surprised how hot it gets.

[Surface Tension]

Does your stove has a bypass damper inside it? If so you don't need to add one or EPA stoves don't use one a damper on the stove pipe. Don't think you have the later.

Wood types, hardwood will burn longer and hotter.

So say this is an old stove and non catalytic. If you increase the burn time by lowering burn rate you will lower the temp inside that stove and inside the stove pipe. Gasses won't fully burn and they condense on the wall of the stove pipe. That is how you get creosote.

If you put a blower on the stove pipe you'll lower that internal flue temp even more.

The damper you have pictured will suck in air from the room and lower the flue temp too.

You might consider a damper inside the stove pipe. These things will collect creosote too and then there is the chimney fire. Incorrect clearances/instalation and build up to the point it falls off and bridges inside the pipe is dangerous.

Back to the stove pipe. What is the creosote build up like now? If its bad it'll get worse with the added devices. Do you have an insulated stove pipe from the attic(cold space) and out the roof? If not your gasses will condense there. With the stove pipe wide open now you might be letting too much heat out when asking for fast heat. The damper will let you control that and fine tune things. Then there is the combustion air your letting into the stove. Could be that your not choking it enough at night because of leaking door gasket.

I'm not saying you shouldn't use the blower on the stove pipe and think they are fine when you have a hot fire. At night through when your reduce those internal temps I'd not use it.

You have to remove it to clean and always when you clean the chimney.

[riverview]

google eco fan. i got mine off HSO-Classifieds and i have seen them at cabelas. there are around 100 bucks but work great.