should i fit a flue damper to wood burner

gamston

hi
a couple of years ago I changed our wood burning stove (with back boiler) for a pre-owned Aarrow Hamlet 6-8KW stove (with back boiler)
it has never seemed to get the same sort of heat output
if I had the old one running for a couple of hours, if someone came in the front door they were knocked out by the heat.
with this hamlet it warm, but does not knock you over & it feels like it uses more wood
the only differents I see between the two are
Old one (cannot work out the make)
must be 30 yrs old
boiler covers sides back and top, with a gap at the front where the fumes go over the boiler and out to flue
it is all metal (no glass doors)
it has a flue damper in outlet
inlets 2 small openings in the doors

the hamlet
glass in front doors
boiler covers back and sides
metal throat plate that sits top of boiler
inlet large opening in front of ash tray

for me the only differents I can see is the flue damper,
by fitting a flue damper that will restrict the hot smoke/fumes going up the flue, but will it reduce the burning/heating as well

A._Badger

This may not help you but I offer it for what it's worth!

When I bought my latest stove (a large Hunter) the retailer offered the flue damper kit at an attractive price and, remembering a conversation I'd had with someone a few years ago about dampers, I bought it on a 'might as well' basis.

That conversation was with a farmer friend who had a very old, ramshackle stove which he told me he controlled almost entirely with the damper. I'd seen it at work and even though the installation looked pretty rough and ready to me, I had to agree it was kicking out prodigious amounts of heat.

Having bought my stove and damper, I was warned never to use it when burning smokeless fuel, which is fair enough (apparently it can cause a build-up of carbon monoxide), only to use it when burning wood and that it may, or may not, work well, depending on my chimney and air flows.

As it turned out, I've come to the conclusion that it makes a tremendous difference and I have more or less learned to emulate my farmer friend's method. Once I get the stove going, I adjust the damper so that there is just a lazy lick of flame. Almost immediately the heat output seems to rise. By the time I have the firebox covered with a good layer of glowing wood, the heat output is very markedly greater than it would be with the damper switched out.

I haven't any figures to prove this and I can't promise it would work in your situation but it does work very well with mine and I suspect that it might be worth a try - though, equally, the difference between your two stoves' outputs could be down to other factors, such as internal baffle or vent design.

The only caveat I would offer is that you should get it professionally fitted if you do decide to try one..

gamston

thanks for the reply, my manual says do not use a damper with coal,
I was checking how hot the stove was last night
flue outlet 200 C
top of stove 150 C
sides of stove 60 C (ok as that is blocked by the boiler in stove)

these were taken after about 1 hrs running, I can see there is lots of heat there, in my mind I can see that these figures work with the boiler in my stove
so it looks like its a flue damper for me