I have been getting my butt kicked by my wood burning stove every winter whenever I first light my fire. Out of sheer frustration I tried this method of rigging up a small space heater and letting it heat up for 15 minutes before I try to light a fire. This has worked 100% of the time! You are a lifesaver Mark! Thanks for the great hack
Hi Mark I watched your video because I was having the same problem with my basement stove. I copied your draft inducer contraption and it works great! Thanks for sharing such a creative solution
The basement is the worst place for a wood stove or fireplace. The negative pressure is the greatest down there. Dampers on wood stoves are not good. To equalize the pressure, open a widow in the basement if you have one. That will relieve the negative pressure. Your heater works well, but it is time consuming.
I just installed a woodburning stove in my workshop and have been thinking of something like this. You have nailed it pretty much. I have been sticking rolled up paper torches up into the pipe entrance from inside, works but its a pain. I think I will try what you did. Good Work!
Take the heater apart. Wrap the heater wires around your chimney pipe . Use a 15 minute timer on the plug to start it and automatically shut off. This method is 110% UL approved with the 'trust me bro' seal of approval.
Most people recommend leaving the door open allowing the hot air and cold air exchanged for 5 to 10 minutes before lighting or even running a small blowtorch or camp stove to help heat it up also upgrading your piping will help keep the heat..
This might just be my favorite vid in the last 5 years. My wood stove is impossible. It belches so much smoke into the house before the chimney starts drawing I just don't use it. I feel hopeful. I'll post back after I try this..... It is now about 3 week after posting the previous comment. I made a "stove heater" like the one Mark made. It works perfect. I even installed a peep hole with a metal tube to test airflow. If you want I can send a picture of it. Thanks Mark.
Ok. I thought so. The probable reason for you draft relates to how you start your fire. You might want to try the “Scandinavian” way to load your stove which is the reverse of what you did. You need to put the big logs at the bottom, then the smaller logs on top, perpendicular to the bigger logs. Then, you put your starter product or paper on top of the smaller logs. After, you put your kindling on your starter product or paper. Then, you use a long nose lighter to light your paper or starter product. Alternatively, you can use the small propane steel bottle with a nozzle which will act as a mini-flame thrower and then, you don’t really need the paper or starter product. You just light the kindling with the mini-flame thrower. Having your flame at the top of your stove as opposed to at the very bottom will create that heat your are artificially creating with the heater gizmo. Try it and let me know. Cheers!
I haven't read the comments. Who knows how much of this has been said. Per what you said about the damper and the holes where it still allows cold air back down...., I'm sure this is some sort of code to protect against carbon monoxide. If the damper is shut too soon (while red coals exist,) people could be killed if the air spaces are not in the damper to still allow draft, even if it's closed it must still allow draft for carbon monoxide. Your solution here is very good and what you need to do to "reverse the flow." Cold chimneys on the outside that don't run through the house attic can be a disaster. First off, make sure you open / crack a window down there to help it out to offset "pressure." After the draw is correct or 2 minutes after lighting..., close the window. If you insulate your chimney inside the "brick box" it will make the draft occur much more quickly. This can be done in many ways, including mineral wool insulation and putting a large pipe (like 10 inch dryer vent) around a small pipe (the stove pipe) and stuffing the space between with perlite or vermiculite. Sure, it's best to insulate the entire thing but if you can't, you show about 6 feet of black stove pipe to your ceiling. You should insulate that ASAP... even for 6 feet it will really help. Not regular insulation, that burns. Mineral wool does not. This is especially true if that room down there is cold. For those who can't rig up what this man has done, putting a candle in the stove for 10 minutes is usually more than enough to get the flow correct. Also, placing a hair dryer between two bricks and pointing it up so the ash doesn't fly all over, works too.
Thanks for that great video appreciations for that.her in Denmark we start always fering in the top then u minimize ur cheminée get dirt inside and if you wanna save heat try to start the fan when the temperature in the pipe is between 80 degrees and 120.🇩🇰👍
I had the same problem until I tried pre-warming the chimney with a hot air gun, like for removing paint. So I can load my stove , put the hot air gun in the out let for 30 seconds & then I can lite the stove . Game changer!
Your chimney is like many others I have seen, with the location of the trees and the second story of your home above the garage roof line it allows for a low pressure area to form. This makes any house difficult to heat with a wood stove. It also affects plumbing vents for the home.
Great video. The heater stand is a great idea...Why damper so high up? Maybe next time double wall pipe. I would have a ultra low co meter in basement. When chimney gets cold as fire goes out CO can come back into home with a cold chimney on a windy day. Corner obstructions impacted my temps.
Your damper is very high. Everything I've read says 12 to 18 inches above the stove. I have a liner and have the same problem. I have a heat gun I put in the chimney. I clean ash as it's heating to keep the dust down. Nice mount for the space heater! I've also used sterno cans before I got the heat gun.
I've very new to wood stoves and recently finished installing mine. I have no issues getting the fire started, but it never seems to get going very strong, even with air intake wide open. Using fresh air intake setup as well so it's a closed system. Took over 2 hours for me to get the stove temp up to around 400F so I can get it to off gas. Is this normal for it to take that long to draft faster? It is hot outside too I hear that can have an effect so maybe I'll have better luck when it's colder. I'm kind of toying with adding a small computer fan on the intake so I can use it to boost the draft but the instructions do explicitly specify to not do that.
I’m so fed up with this new wood stove and the smell it produces I’m close to ripping it out. We’ve tried preheating with a hair dryer to no avail. Pondering making up one of your draft inducers. I have my doubts though. Even when we do get the fire going and the chimney warm it still doesn’t burn as it should. Most times it almost dies out. I’ve extended the chimney. Brought in a fresh air intake pipe. Nothing seems to help. ☹️
Just a thought, apparently what your doing now works. But you could preload the stove with fuel before forcing warm air into the chimney, so that when you have a good draft, you can quickly get to lighting the fire with a strong draft.
I've never had an issue with smoke when lighting a fire. I use a torch to get the paper and the kindling going. About 5 seconds with door closed as much as possible. Then crack the door, it starts drawing air pretty much immediately. Once kindling is lit then I add wood. However I do have two doors. I used to have one like yours. Still no problem. They do make an automatic draw collar that goes on the pipe that is electric.
Interesting looks like it still takes a while- I was thinking about in-line flue fan or a chimney fan to induce a draft temporary during start up.... “autodraft” makes one pretty inexpensive
Don't bother it's far out dated man, I had a 16' horizontal pipe at 1" rise per ft with 2 90's also a clean out tee, leading to a 16' tall stack. The stove was an old smoke dragon buck 27000 which wasnt anything close to an air tight stove. When the fire burned down it started backing up inside bad with carbon monoxide (no shit right) then if it was 40 degrees out, or 30 below 0 or 60-75mph winds, or rain or snow it didn't draft good at all. Only ran such a tarded pipe run to "hide the pipe" as my wife didn't like it.... So a couple guys I know used the old school draft fans. They liked it, but hated the noise, maintenance, the asho/soot/creosote build up. I tried the SBI Draw Collar and it solved all my issues honestly. They've been out for a long time now so well proven. It has a thermo snap disc that turns the collar heater on when cold, then turns it off when it heats up (when the stoves burning) turns back on IMMEDIATELY when the stove starts to die out to always prevent any back up of dangerous carbon monoxide. No moving parts, extremely energy efficient, never needs cleaning/maintainence. Last year I picked up a big old Drolet ht3000 stove that's an extremely strong, clean and safe stove. Ran a proper class a stove pipe/stack finally. And I still installed my Draw Collar because it's that good truthfully. Even my wife can easily fire up the stove, and the entire setup is that much safer considering we have a couple month old baby boy now so safety is far and above my #1, saving thousands on oil is 2nd (we own all the land heavily wooded all hardwoods and a big ole Deere so firewoods all free for us) I wrote all this shit here to help. I started with the worst stove/pipe setup you could have that'll still actually work and honestly the draw collar solved everything, and I still installed it in my new set up for good reason. The guys who had the fans trashed them and now have draw collars too. Far as I know they cannot believe how much better they are and work. And they'll never go back to the old school draft fans to out it mildly
Whatever works. In my basement stove I have easy access to where the stove pipe enters the stove (6" hole). I stick a cheap heat gun into the hole and after about 60 seconds the draft is going back up. During that 60 seconds I lay the fire and light it as soon as I remove the heat gun. Don't spare the kindling because if the fire doesn't start the downdraft will return.
I just bought a draw collar 299.00 on sale online, I have the same problem but when the fire goes out I get the smell of wet wood, that’s why I chose the draw collar, it keeps the flue at 210degrees when the fire goes out ( thermostat)
Hi, we actually just bought a collar as well. Did you notice a big difference with hydro bill? Also, do you leave it on at all times? We have that problem where it smells when no fire is burning. Thanks
hi. mark. i have serious back draft problems. simillar like yours, but its little difference. when the very cold windy day, after i fired wood stove(use torch for make a draft) , suddenly back draft happen. And fire is immediatly out with a lot of smoke. My stove is located in our dining room and there is big vent for basement gas furnace. and back draft happened when furnace fan working. Do you think it happened by not enough oxygen??
Ok mark that's a good idea but if you have a power outage that won't work. Take tuna can or any small container fill with rubbing alcohol. Lite the alcohol with the container in the stove, it works every time with no smoke.
I used to have this problem til I extended my pipe 3ft over the highest part of my roof. And I have 30ft of reg black stove pipe exposed outside of my shop.
theres your problem your chimney pipe shall be 2-3ft higher than your highest peak. Or your going to experience this problem. i had the same problem, so I had to add 4 more feet and it stopped.
Mark, there is no need for you to “clean” your stove after each and every time you have a fire. You should be able to do 3 good fires before you clean it, unless you burn 24 hours a day. This will help you reduce the number of times you ‘dirty” your shop…😊
Don't know if I'd be shaking All that ash you can see it blowing in the air it wouldn't be good to inhale. If you do so I would have a box fan with some kind of air filter to draw in all the ash.
No no no this is not how you do it!!! First of all, you need a good wood stove and if you have a good wood stove you never need a damper?? Get rid of that stove and get one that is airtight no Damper needed. Hold some rolled up paper near the top of the stove to get the chimney warmed up then you light the stove . I suggest a Blaze King if you get a new wood stove Cheers 🙂
Have a similar problem. Can it be solved with someting that pulls the air from top of the chimney out into the sky?)) I am now thinking about something like this cowl th-cam.com/video/HAuJeurxEBY/w-d-xo.html
![“อาร์ต พศุตม์” เกือบเอี่ยวทุกคดีดัง เอ๊ะไว้ก่อน ไม่มีอะไรได้มาง่ายๆ | แฉ 16 ต.ค. 67 [2/3] | GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0Gx-0-kUBv8/mqdefault.jpg)
I have been getting my butt kicked by my wood burning stove every winter whenever I first light my fire. Out of sheer frustration I tried this method of rigging up a small space heater and letting it heat up for 15 minutes before I try to light a fire. This has worked 100% of the time! You are a lifesaver Mark! Thanks for the great hack
Thanks commenting David. This is my favorite comment so far. I hoped this idea would help someone.
Hi Mark I watched your video because I was having the same problem with my basement stove. I copied your draft inducer contraption and it works great! Thanks for sharing such a creative solution
Cool. Glad to hear I helped someone. 👍🏻
The basement is the worst place for a wood stove or fireplace. The negative pressure is the greatest down there. Dampers on wood stoves are not good. To equalize the pressure, open a widow in the basement if you have one. That will relieve the negative pressure. Your heater works well, but it is time consuming.
I just installed a woodburning stove in my workshop and have been thinking of something like this. You have nailed it pretty much. I have been sticking rolled up paper torches up into the pipe entrance from inside, works but its a pain. I think I will try what you did. Good Work!
Take the heater apart. Wrap the heater wires around your chimney pipe . Use a 15 minute timer on the plug to start it and automatically shut off. This method is 110% UL approved with the 'trust me bro' seal of approval.
Use the upside down fire method. Largest wood on the bottom with smaller pieces and kindling on top. You will get almost no smoke.
Interesting. 🧐
Most people recommend leaving the door open allowing the hot air and cold air exchanged for 5 to 10 minutes before lighting or even running a small blowtorch or camp stove to help heat it up also upgrading your piping will help keep the heat..
That is a nifty holder for all the wood burning stove necessities!
This might just be my favorite vid in the last 5 years. My wood stove is impossible. It belches so much smoke into the house before the chimney starts drawing I just don't use it. I feel hopeful. I'll post back after I try this..... It is now about 3 week after posting the previous comment. I made a "stove heater" like the one Mark made. It works perfect. I even installed a peep hole with a metal tube to test airflow. If you want I can send a picture of it. Thanks Mark.
This is exactly what I was planning to do...then decided to you tube the issue...lol such a pain but well worth it Mark
Ok. I thought so. The probable reason for you draft relates to how you start your fire. You might want to try the “Scandinavian” way to load your stove which is the reverse of what you did. You need to put the big logs at the bottom, then the smaller logs on top, perpendicular to the bigger logs. Then, you put your starter product or paper on top of the smaller logs. After, you put your kindling on your starter product or paper. Then, you use a long nose lighter to light your paper or starter product. Alternatively, you can use the small propane steel bottle with a nozzle which will act as a mini-flame thrower and then, you don’t really need the paper or starter product. You just light the kindling with the mini-flame thrower. Having your flame at the top of your stove as opposed to at the very bottom will create that heat your are artificially creating with the heater gizmo. Try it and let me know. Cheers!
I can’t imagine this working but I’ll try anything once. I’ll let you know how it works.
Great video and idea.
I haven't read the comments. Who knows how much of this has been said. Per what you said about the damper and the holes where it still allows cold air back down...., I'm sure this is some sort of code to protect against carbon monoxide. If the damper is shut too soon (while red coals exist,) people could be killed if the air spaces are not in the damper to still allow draft, even if it's closed it must still allow draft for carbon monoxide. Your solution here is very good and what you need to do to "reverse the flow." Cold chimneys on the outside that don't run through the house attic can be a disaster. First off, make sure you open / crack a window down there to help it out to offset "pressure." After the draw is correct or 2 minutes after lighting..., close the window. If you insulate your chimney inside the "brick box" it will make the draft occur much more quickly. This can be done in many ways, including mineral wool insulation and putting a large pipe (like 10 inch dryer vent) around a small pipe (the stove pipe) and stuffing the space between with perlite or vermiculite. Sure, it's best to insulate the entire thing but if you can't, you show about 6 feet of black stove pipe to your ceiling. You should insulate that ASAP... even for 6 feet it will really help. Not regular insulation, that burns. Mineral wool does not. This is especially true if that room down there is cold. For those who can't rig up what this man has done, putting a candle in the stove for 10 minutes is usually more than enough to get the flow correct. Also, placing a hair dryer between two bricks and pointing it up so the ash doesn't fly all over, works too.
Thanks for that great video appreciations for that.her in Denmark we start always fering in the top then u minimize ur cheminée get dirt inside and if you wanna save heat try to start the fan when the temperature in the pipe is between 80 degrees and 120.🇩🇰👍
I had the same problem until I tried pre-warming the chimney with a hot air gun, like for removing paint. So I can load my stove , put the hot air gun in the out let for 30 seconds & then I can lite the stove . Game changer!
That sounds like a good solution too. 👍🏻
Your chimney is like many others I have seen, with the location of the trees and the second story of your home above the garage roof line it allows for a low pressure area to form. This makes any house difficult to heat with a wood stove. It also affects plumbing vents for the home.
i use a tiger torch to get a draft going,and a 15 inch fan in front of the stove works every time minus 40 Celsius,here in Canadian.
I use a TS8000 torch to light my fire. No longer need to be fussy with kindling.. other simple torches work well too.
Sounds like it works.
Excellent!!
Great video. The heater stand is a great idea...Why damper so high up?
Maybe next time double wall pipe.
I would have a ultra low co meter in basement. When chimney gets cold as fire goes out CO can come back into home with a cold chimney on a windy day.
Corner obstructions impacted my temps.
Your damper is very high. Everything I've read says 12 to 18 inches above the stove. I have a liner and have the same problem. I have a heat gun I put in the chimney. I clean ash as it's heating to keep the dust down. Nice mount for the space heater! I've also used sterno cans before I got the heat gun.
Excellent stuff bro
Thanks buddy.
I LOVE IT, GREAT JOB
Delightful
I've very new to wood stoves and recently finished installing mine. I have no issues getting the fire started, but it never seems to get going very strong, even with air intake wide open. Using fresh air intake setup as well so it's a closed system. Took over 2 hours for me to get the stove temp up to around 400F so I can get it to off gas. Is this normal for it to take that long to draft faster? It is hot outside too I hear that can have an effect so maybe I'll have better luck when it's colder. I'm kind of toying with adding a small computer fan on the intake so I can use it to boost the draft but the instructions do explicitly specify to not do that.
My first thought is some of your fire bricks have moved and are blocking the air flow. Second, is your wood good and dry?
I’m so fed up with this new wood stove and the smell it produces I’m close to ripping it out. We’ve tried preheating with a hair dryer to no avail. Pondering making up one of your draft inducers. I have my doubts though. Even when we do get the fire going and the chimney warm it still doesn’t burn as it should. Most times it almost dies out. I’ve extended the chimney. Brought in a fresh air intake pipe. Nothing seems to help. ☹️
Just a thought, apparently what your doing now works. But you could preload the stove with fuel before forcing warm air into the chimney, so that when you have a good draft, you can quickly get to lighting the fire with a strong draft.
I may try that.
I've never had an issue with smoke when lighting a fire. I use a torch to get the paper and the kindling going. About 5 seconds with door closed as much as possible. Then crack the door, it starts drawing air pretty much immediately. Once kindling is lit then I add wood. However I do have two doors. I used to have one like yours. Still no problem.
They do make an automatic draw collar that goes on the pipe that is electric.
Mine would not draw - no matter what. 😕
Interesting looks like it still takes a while- I was thinking about in-line flue fan or a chimney fan to induce a draft temporary during start up.... “autodraft” makes one pretty inexpensive
Don't bother it's far out dated man, I had a 16' horizontal pipe at 1" rise per ft with 2 90's also a clean out tee, leading to a 16' tall stack. The stove was an old smoke dragon buck 27000 which wasnt anything close to an air tight stove. When the fire burned down it started backing up inside bad with carbon monoxide (no shit right) then if it was 40 degrees out, or 30 below 0 or 60-75mph winds, or rain or snow it didn't draft good at all.
Only ran such a tarded pipe run to "hide the pipe" as my wife didn't like it....
So a couple guys I know used the old school draft fans. They liked it, but hated the noise, maintenance, the asho/soot/creosote build up. I tried the SBI Draw Collar and it solved all my issues honestly. They've been out for a long time now so well proven. It has a thermo snap disc that turns the collar heater on when cold, then turns it off when it heats up (when the stoves burning) turns back on IMMEDIATELY when the stove starts to die out to always prevent any back up of dangerous carbon monoxide.
No moving parts, extremely energy efficient, never needs cleaning/maintainence.
Last year I picked up a big old Drolet ht3000 stove that's an extremely strong, clean and safe stove. Ran a proper class a stove pipe/stack finally. And I still installed my Draw Collar because it's that good truthfully. Even my wife can easily fire up the stove, and the entire setup is that much safer considering we have a couple month old baby boy now so safety is far and above my #1, saving thousands on oil is 2nd (we own all the land heavily wooded all hardwoods and a big ole Deere so firewoods all free for us)
I wrote all this shit here to help. I started with the worst stove/pipe setup you could have that'll still actually work and honestly the draw collar solved everything, and I still installed it in my new set up for good reason. The guys who had the fans trashed them and now have draw collars too. Far as I know they cannot believe how much better they are and work. And they'll never go back to the old school draft fans to out it mildly
Whatever works.
In my basement stove I have easy access to where the stove pipe enters the stove (6" hole). I stick a cheap heat gun into the hole and after about 60 seconds the draft is going back up. During that 60 seconds I lay the fire and light it as soon as I remove the heat gun.
Don't spare the kindling because if the fire doesn't start the downdraft will return.
I do no have such problem in my fireplace insert . May be my 15 feet flex chimney liner is insulated ?????
I just bought a draw collar 299.00 on sale online, I have the same problem but when the fire goes out I get the smell of wet wood, that’s why I chose the draw collar, it keeps the flue at 210degrees when the fire goes out ( thermostat)
Hi, we actually just bought a collar as well. Did you notice a big difference with hydro bill? Also, do you leave it on at all times? We have that problem where it smells when no fire is burning. Thanks
Have you tried a fresh air intake that pulls the air from outside where its much colder than the house air. It usually helps with the draft
I think that’s a good idea. It would be interesting to see if helped, but takes some work to get that installed.
I'm no professional but i think your draft issues mean your chimney needs more length
hi. mark.
i have serious back draft problems. simillar like yours, but its little difference.
when the very cold windy day, after i fired wood stove(use torch for make a draft) , suddenly back draft happen. And fire is immediatly out with a lot of smoke.
My stove is located in our dining room and there is big vent for basement gas furnace. and back draft happened when furnace fan working.
Do you think it happened by not enough oxygen??
I’m no expert. Your issue sounds very puzzling to me as well.
Pretty cool idea. Tjerlund makes a auto draft motor, but your technique is cooler.
Did you ever just try burning newspaper to warm the chimney before loading the stove up? That is a cheap easy way to do it
Ok mark that's a good idea but if you have a power outage that won't work. Take tuna can or any small container fill with rubbing alcohol. Lite the alcohol with the container in the stove, it works every time with no smoke.
I used to have this problem til I extended my pipe 3ft over the highest part of my roof. And I have 30ft of reg black stove pipe exposed outside of my shop.
theres your problem your chimney pipe shall be 2-3ft higher than your highest peak. Or your going to experience this problem. i had the same problem, so I had to add 4 more feet and it stopped.
Mark, there is no need for you to “clean” your stove after each and every time you have a fire. You should be able to do 3 good fires before you clean it, unless you burn 24 hours a day. This will help you reduce the number of times you ‘dirty” your shop…😊
I suppose you are right. I’m a bit of a neat freak about some things.
I do start the fire top down method tho....
Most modern stores don't need dampers and don't usually meet code.
one pound propane torch heats mine up in about 2-4 minutes.
Just an FYI, your chimney wasn't built properly if it doesn't draft!
Thank you. I can only wonder how it would have been different.
Don't know if I'd be shaking All that ash you can see it blowing in the air it wouldn't be good to inhale. If you do so I would have a box fan with some kind of air filter to draw in all the ash.
Hmmmmm,weeel mr the big problem with your chimnys negativ draft,is actually a constructiun,design blunder,,the chimny is at least 8-10 feet to low
I believe you. But this is an easy fix.
Water and ash to clean the window. Works better and cheaper than Windex
I simply warm up the pipe with a propane torch
Open a window in the to equalize the pressure in the house then heat the flu
I tried that. It didn’t make a difference. 🤷🏼
That just totaly sucks
Your out side chimney needs to be higher above all air flow obstructions mabey
Yes, maybe.
All those angles in the pipe don't help draft either.
No no no this is not how you do it!!! First of all, you need a good wood stove and if you have a good wood stove you never need a damper?? Get rid of that stove and get one that is airtight no Damper needed. Hold some rolled up paper near the top of the stove to get the chimney warmed up then you light the stove . I suggest a Blaze King if you get a new wood stove Cheers 🙂
you dont know how to start a fire too much wood . build a kindleng fire then add the big logs learn
Have a similar problem. Can it be solved with someting that pulls the air from top of the chimney out into the sky?)) I am now thinking about something like this cowl
th-cam.com/video/HAuJeurxEBY/w-d-xo.html
I’m no expert but that sounds like it could work.
yikes. Some people just shouldn't burn wood.