Wood Burning Stoves Reviews

A Sunrise wood stove is what you’re looking for when you want a constant interchange of fresh air coming into and out of your home.  Exactly what kind of wood burning stove is this?  It’s the kind of stove that uses a reverse process which brings cold outside air in for burning fuel.  It also uses external air for heating; drawing cold outside air into a chamber attached to the stove where it is heated and warms your residence.  This causes a slight overpressure in the house.  The overpressure greatly reduces the incoming cold air drafts around windows, doors, electrical outlets, etc.

You can give credit for the Sunrise wood design to Jan Steen.

Who Was Jan Steen Of Sunrise Wood Stove Fame?

You might be wondering who was Jan Steen of Sunrise wood stove fame?  Steen came up with the innovative wood burning stove design, after he moved to British Columbia’s west coast in 1976. His rental unit was equipped with a Franklin stove, which he found highly inadequate and with quite a few defects.  The Franklin stove had doors that didn’t fit right, causing a leaking of air. The combustion chamber was too shallow and wide.

On top of that, the stove didn’t have a control for burning and took lots of wood to use.  The Franklin stove also produced interior breezes inside the building because it had to use inside air for the combustion process.  When the inside air was used to burn wood, the air exhausted up the stove chimney.  Of course this meant exterior air was “pulled into” the house to replace what was going up the flue causing drafts of cold air.

The answer for who was Jan Steen of Sunrise wood burning stove fame can be seen in the innovation. Through many trials and errors, Steen managed to improve the Franklin stove in both its design and mechanism. What came from the improvement was the barrel-shaped stove that included a large furnace for burning and an extended plenum for heating.  Both used outside air – the “reverse process”.

Steen’s design got rid of the need for the continuous interior breezes, using cold outside air for the heating process. When this happened, the negative air pressure became a positive air pressure in tune eliminating drafts around window and door openings. The Sunrise wood stove’s heating efficiency was improved because of the separation of the burn cycle and heating effects.

How Steen Used The Reverse Process In The Sunrise Wood Stove

There are two simple applications of the reverse process:

1. Fresh outside air is brought into the home through external pipes, which then goes through the interior tubing and is used for burning the fuel. This removed the necessity of cold air infiltration.
2. The stove uses the draft effect to bring in additional fresh outside air into the rear heating chamber. The air heats up, expanding into the room and draws colder, exterior air into the heating chamber.

This released heated air is comparatively loaded with oxygen and creates a very small positive air pressure in the building.  It is, however, the pressure discrepancy that makes the stove much more efficient and effective. After all, the warmed air is freed into the room instead of being exhausted out the vent.  Thanks to the repeated direct intake of fresh outdoor air, inside air pollution is significantly reduced.

Although it’s a great development, many folks wonder who was Jan Steen of wood stove fame.  Although Steen had his own foundry to produce the innovative reverse process wood burning stove, it was never produced for the masses.  Still, he sent out roughly 75 units throughout Canada, with many being installed in Oregon.

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