Fresh Air Supply for Barometric Damper?

Hello all:

I completed the overhaul of a second hand fired Franco-Belge by mixing and matching parts from three old stoves.(If I didn't think I might need some of the leftover parts in the future, I could probably make some money selling them E-Bay.) The two stoves are now side-by-side ready to be hooked up to the fireplace chimney. I have probe thermometers for each stove and I will connect the Dwyer manometer that just came via UPS. I do, however, have a thought about the barometric damper.

On other threads, people have spoken about a fresh air supply for combustion air for safety and also for efficiency. What about hooking up my baro damper directly to outside air so that I don't waste any room temperature air. I know that the way it currently operates is the lesser of two evils; rather than waste superheated stove air and disrupt the rate of combustion, some room air goes up the flue instead. If the baro was hooked up to outside air, none of the room temp air would be lost.

The only thing I can say against this idea is that maybe the ice cold air would drastically lower the flue pipe temps and disrupt the draft of the chimney. Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.

John

I would think that the wind would effect how your baro would work. I wouldn't do it.

The wind gusts may then affect both sides of the damper, I don't know if it could work properly at that point. I don't think it is a good idea, maybe some testing could disprove this theory though.

Thanks for your comments. I never did hook up the baro damper to a fresh air supply, so I'll not know if it could be functional, at least not this winter.

I don't think you'll lose much effeciency anyway.

My thoughts are, that "outside air" vented to the baro won't work. Why? Because the baro's function is to compare, and make adjustments to compensate for, differences between inside air and outside air, pressures, to maintain a preset differential. These differences can be caused by heat in the chimney or drafts passing over or down the chimney. ??