Eliminate cold drafts by adding fresh air intake near stove!

Hey everyone,

I just posted a few annoying question laden posts in a couple other sections, I'm a total noob with PV systems, and wanted to hopefully add something back to the community!

This is for cold-climate folks, the colder the better this works. If you're in a cabin with a woodstove roaring and temperatures down to -20 to -50 C, a lot of air is leaving up your stove pipe, and so your cabin sucks it in from every crack it can find... around windows, doors, holes in your vapour barrier, you name it. This all contributes to a cold, drafty cabin.

The simple and elegant solution is to put an intentional cold air intake and have it come in under or next to your woodstove. 4" ducting, placed high enough so rodents can't get to it, screened for bugs and regulated with a damper does just fine. Now when it's super cold and your fire is going, with the damper open, fresh air is drawn in through here, and so it doesn't try to squeeze in from every crack. The cold air is warmed by your stove so you get fresh warm air instead!

Hope this helps someone out there! I live on the same latitude as Anchorage, AK, have done, seen, been told or read about all sorts of cold-weather tips and tricks, for houses and vehicles; if anyone ever has anything they are struggling with let me know

All the best out there,



Charles.

Definitely the same here in Finland. Prevents all your warmed up air from being sucked out as well.
Welcome to the forum!

You can buy a unit in Australia that replaces a section of your flue(basically a flue with a second skin), and ducted air from outside is drawn between the layers into your dwelling.

Im conjunction with a powerful exhaust fan in the bathroom and a well sealed dwelling - this does a great job for a fraction of the price of a HRV system.

It's also a good way to make a trailer-unapproved wood stove work safely in a trailer.

It’s amazing how uncommon this knowledge is. I used to explain it to people, who had headaches from their gas water heater fumes because they sealed the house and air would rush down the water heater flue.

the twin pipe system is great, but a hole or duct for intake air is critical At a minimum.

Yeah, up here with the newer building standards they are insulated so well and sealed up so tight that I'm pretty sure an HRV became mandatory because there were epic problems with moisture and fumes. Even if people were off-grid, couldn't power them and were going to solve problems with woodheat and intakes, the workaround became installing one (or at least making it look ready for one?) for inspection and then taking it out

Here in Finland HRV has been standard for decades. Houses are very well insulated in this climate - triple pane glazing for example has been used in most buildings for at least 20 years. Even before that, this was mimicked by having a window with multiple glass panes.

There is no way i’d lower myself to build to Australian standards.

Standards lobbied for by volume builders so they can knock up quick dogboxes without taking care.

Good tip, been doing that since the 1800's, I guess it helps equalize pressure, recycled knowhow is the best!

Totally agree. When it’s a chilly 70F here and we have a big fire, I don’t want that 60F air sneaking in! ?

Buy a woodburner with an air inlet connection. Makes a closed loop - well, half a closed loop, but closed as far as the house is concerned

A barrel stove with two 1” iron pipe sealed air supplies vs the door “damper” in a not-so-insulated 30x50 shop building can make an immediate 15-20*F improvement in air temp at zero outside.
You have to have NO chimney pipe air leaks or you can get gasification-caused explosions in the chimney or pipe if new oxygen gets drawn in.

Mine gets make up air from around the chimney and draws from the roof down ther some space in the finishing
works fine .
most homes get enough draft just from little cracks , my stove burns 24/7 until spring now .
my chair is 10’ from the stove and it’s like sitting on the sun i have only wood heat
And the house is 3000’ a few drafts don’t bother me much .
If I get the stove really cooking wifey has the door open any way ?

Bluedog225 said:

Totally agree. When it’s a chilly 70F here and we have a big fire, I don’t want that 60F air sneaking in! ?

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I guess some of your neighbors didn't get the memo during that ice storm. MFers were using charcoal grills inside. ?‍

I just crack the window that's near the stove, never had a big issue with drafting.

I wanted to offer a small counter point in some circumstances. I live in a somewhat cold place where we get a few sub zero (f) nights, nearly all of winter is lows below freezing, and we get ~20 feet of snow on average.

When it's snowy you'll bring that snow inside on your boots and your clothes and then you're going to want that warm dry air to (rightfully) dry everything out. But then you can end up with a lot of condensation which can turn to frost on metal that travels to the outside and inside (window frames, in particular). That frost then melts, and you end up with continual water damage. You can even get interior freeze/thaw cycling which is a whole bag of problems on its own.

The two ways I know how to deal with this:

1) A "warm" mud room where jackets and boots go. The problem with this is that you'll probably need those boots again in a few hours and a slightly warm mud room isn't going to do a good enough job at drying even with a boot dryer. Likewise, confining a family's snowy clothes to a small room just makes it ridiculously humid which interferes with drying. And it's not really "warm", it's just warmer than the outside, somewhat. A very properly engineered mudroom which is drawing dry air from the warm house interior and venting it outside can work really well. But you'll notice you need a draw of fresh air for that to work.

2) A fresh air intake which can be as simple as cracking a small window when you have snowy clothes melting and closing it up when you don't.

If it's just cold and you don't have a lot of moisture in the air, you want the house sealed up like a drum. But once you start adding a lot of interior moisture you need a way for that moisture to escape. Just something to consider when you start to see frost on the interior door knobs, metal window frames, etc.

Edit: and I should add that we're in maritime snow climate which tends to have very wet snow with a high rainwater equivalent. Folks in intermountain snow climates probably experience a lot more dry snow which much less water in it.

Bone dry in my area , I do get some funny lake affect snow , I seam to get 1 or 2” every nite