Just curious if anyone has had, or dealt with, a draft problem due to a suspected air inversion?? More so due to yard geography (think trees/buildings/wind direction) I've read a bit and am starting to wonder if this is my problem on some occasions. I've posted before that winds from the east in my case, mess with me to a varying degree. The colder it is, the more noticeable it is. I usually just run the stove up about 100 degrees hotter in the stack, and it seems to chase it away and run normally. It's a bit of a fight, and the fire will act bizarre before it smartens up. Lately we've had a few colder nights and wind from the east which is odd in itself. Is there any solution besides one of those rotating wind caps?
I've heard varying results with wind caps. Most are positive but I tried one a long time ago and could see no difference. Same with a barometric damper. It works for some but I've not had good results. We sometimes have a problem but it is minor. I expected worse but fortunately it is not. We have tall oak trees very close to the house on the north. More on the west. Tall pines on the south. Lots of downdrafting for us when it is windy. But what I've found to get along is about the same as you. Just run the stove a bit hotter; give it more draft. For sure you should have good draft with the cold you get !
We're seeing more issues in homes with modern 'tight' construction - insufficient makeup air or inversions created by vent fans or HVAC in the house kicking on and off. The usual solution in these cases is an outside air kit but that's not an option for everyone, and wouldn't really help a wind situation. saskwoodburner Where is your chimney in relation to these trees and the mass of the house?
We've been living with that. We're running a Harmon Oakwood. It has its own 4" intake because the house is certified R2000 (tighter than a fly's arse). When the air is damp and around 0ºC with no wind, there's bound to be issues of backdraft. We did get around and install a spinning cap which helped quite a bit. By that, I mean the spinning cap with a slight breeze was the same as a normal rain cap with a good gusty breeze. We still don't burn when its about oºC or above though.
I forgot to come back with an update for any who were curious. I rigged up a piece of tin and clamped it on to the east side of the cap, blocking incoming wind on the open side of the cap. I noticed an immediate improvement on the ability of getting a fire to flame up and get going on coals. It's a work in progress, as while I'd call it a 70 percent improvement on the east wind battle, it has the curious effect of moderating the draft from the west and north west. Not to a great detriment, as it helps with the wonky wind more than it hinders wind from any other direction though. I'll probably leave it for now, and make it smaller and poke a few holes in it when the weather warms a bit. Not an elegant solution, but seems to work.
Here's my artists rendition of smoke flow out of the chimney. Funny thing is, the 5 arrows indicate how the smoke flows out, but it would flare out to the sides at the same time ( a view from above would show it zipping left and right) all while the smoke was changing levels. This happens constantly. No wonder I had too much draft, not enough draft, and variable draft, all in the same 10 seconds. Forgot to rotate the pic to the right, but you get the idea.
If I had problems from more than one direction I'd consider one of those for sure. As a general rule here, any other wind is either neutral until about 20 mph, or slight turbo charge , except for winds from the south, they turbo charge my draft even at 10 mph. The damper takes care of this easily.
I have a row of 8-40' blue spruce running N/S about 100' SW of the house. When there is a SW wind I get very poor draft and an occaisional back puff .Its pretty rare the wind comes from that direction in the winter and when it does it rarely lasts long. My remedy has been to just stop burning for the brief time wind comes from the SW
Try a top down start fire. It gets the flue drafting faster than the usual starting techniques. It may avoid those smoky starting burns. We always use it now when the fires die out and no live coals for reburns. And keep the burns hot, with less fuel if you need to.
Normally I would just fight through it a time or two, now and then and not worry too much about it. But I'll have to blame the polar vortex for the abnormal wind conditions especially with it being so cold. I've never seen so much wind trending from the east. I think at one point it was steady for almost 36-40 hours from that direction. There's no way I could stop burning in this weather without paying a heavy price in heating oil.
This isn't actually a cold start problem, it's an anytime the wind is from the east (and with lower than -20 weather) and flue temp less than about 600 f problem. The stove runs 24/7 on about a 6 week cycle starting November because I'm overzealous on chimney sweeping. Otherwise it would run straight through til April. You could literally have 3 inches of coals, 400 degree flue temp, dry as a fart wood reload, and it will still be a battle. It's a real head scratcher. Like I said, my fancy piece of tin seems to be enough to make it pretty much a non event now.
