Spent Thanksgiving afternoon at a friend's house. One story house on a slope so has a walkout basement. For heat, they primarily use a double-barrel stove in the basement. Over it is a hood which feeds the hot air into the duct work. When the furnace fan is on, it blows the heated air through the living area.

However, Dick didn't think the barrel stove was burning efficiently and finally figured out it wasn't drawing air properly since the house and basement are relatively airtight. He ran a 3" pipe from the outside to about 8" in front of the door air slots. He said when there is a fire now, you can hold your hand between the pipe and air slots and feel a noticeable air intake. Apparently the fire was being starved of an air supply.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), November 27, 2001

Answers

When researching on ways to move heated air and get best results from my woodstove, I am sure I read somewhere that you should never run duct work from an above-stove-mounted-hood. I may be wrong but I am curious if anybody has any comments on this?

Sean

-- Sean (seand@mail.gov.nf.ca), November 27, 2001.

We have a wood furnace that was meant to be in a basement outside in a metal shed. Our hot air duct comes off the top of the stove. The stove has a jacket, both side and the top, that captures the hot air. The fan kicks on when it reaches it's temperature. That's the way it was made, with the duct on the top. The fire gets air from outside of course. Actually it has a fan that could blow air into the bottom of the fire, but we never use it, don't need do. It draws really well as long as we keep the ashes cleaned out from down underneath the grate. I love this stove.

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), November 28, 2001.