Simon
Published on
Hello, I recently spoke to you regarding the 60 day money back offer when purchasing a windkat and explained my situation. You were very helpful and believed this should help my situation. I just wanted to write to you with some feedback on it. I installed it 2 weeks ago and have been waiting for some wind, fearing it may be a calm spring and I may have to wait until autumn! However one day last week and again today it's pretty windy here and I have to say I'm seriously impressed with the Windkat. My situation is that we have a house with a rear extension added and the twinwall flue runs up the back wall of the main house (so out the top of the extension) and sits up about 1m above the guttering and well below the ridge line of the house. Since installing we have had some serious downdraft issues. The first time we became aware of the issue was on a very windy day and it caused the (charnwood country 6) fire which has closed doors on to pop slightly open and smoke into the room, the fire was on relatively low (no big flames) and the downdraft was so strong it did blow the doors ajar and allow the stove to smoke into the room. I tried heating the fire up to counteract the effects (get some flames going) and the result of a strong gust was that flames shot out of the air vents at the bottom of the fire about 5 inches long, which was incredibly alarming! Since this we have had to be careful when we use it but sometimes the wind picks up quickly once a fire is already on and we have had problems with smoking even in relatively modest winds. I believe the issue is caused by unstable air because the flue ends below the ridge line. The smoke can be seen to blow one way and then another, to rise and then suddenly fall and I could see it eddy around on the main roof when viewed from the garden, so we are pretty sure it's caused by turbulence from the main roof. We had the fire in a main chimney previously and had no issues as it exists above the ridge line. Our options were to try and anti-downdraft cowl, extend it higher requiring guy ropes into the main roof for stability and a long flue or to route it in through the main house, into the loft space and out of the roof on the ridge, most of which would be cheap or desirable. We tried a Euro cowl anti-downdraft and this did help in more modest winds but on windier days, it didn't make any difference. With trepidation we tried the expensive looking Windkat because it got excellent reviews and money-back offer if it didn't work, something which no other cowl offered. I fitted it myself and I'm not exactly handy! We had the round 6" plug-in one which basically just slots in the top. Our flue has clips that lock around each section but the windkat didn't have the same fitting to lock it in, so I applied the heatproof silicone and slotted it in and then locked the clip around tightly to give it comes extra grip/security, it's a good fit. It's made a remarkable difference, it now suffers no downdraft at all on windy days! Last week I woke up to hear the roaring of the wind in the big tress and rush downstairs to try it out, it was pretty windy but I couldn't feel any wind coming down the flue, I light the fire and it took a little while to get going because I had rushed it in my enthusiasm! This made for a great test because it smoked slowly into life and this is the time the flue would have had most issues before, it was cold and not running fast. 10 out of 10 for solving a savage downdraft that cause our fire doors to pop-open in the wind and fire to shoot out the air vents in a gust! it's completely solved the problem. With thanks,
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