How often do you reflect on how well you chimney pipe is drafting while you are enjoying a nice fire in your wood stove? Do you sit back in your chair, ignoring the crackling fire, and say to yourself, "that is such a beautiful black pipe that is creating the perfect fire!" When we are having problems with our wood stove puffing smoke into the house we naturally think, "there is something wrong with my stove!" when the stove is literally the farthest thing from the problem....why the farthest thing? Because most often it is the chimney cap at the very end of the system that is plugged causing the problem. Make sure that you cap is clean and read on for more ways that draft affects your wood stove's performance.

Draft is the force which moves exhaust from the appliance up through the chimney. A properly drafting chimney will pull the correct amount of air into the stove and will provide you with excellent performance and heat output. Inadequate draft may cause back puffing of smoke into the room and creosote formation in the chimney. Inadequate draft will cause the appliance to leak smoke and carbon monoxide into the room through appliance and chimney connector joints. Factors that reduce draft are:

Too much draft may cause excessive temperatures in the appliance and may damage the internal components of the stove. An uncontrollable burn or excessive temperature indicates excessive draft. Factors that increase draft are:

Finally, when installing a new Kuma wood stove, follow these chimney height guidelines to make sure that you have a chimney tall enough to create the proper draft.