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Energy Saver: Furnace, Boiler & Woodstove Combustion
(continued ...) switches, test exhaust venting system, brush/clean/vacuum burner(s), test ignition system, safety inspection and get the fuel-air ratio adjusted by measuring exhaust gases. These services will likely have full pay back during the same season; especially if a safety problem is found.
This applies to fossil fuels and combustible hydrocarbons alike. If you cannot find someone to specifically look at your pellet stove, see if you can talk the regular furnace/boiler residential heating contractor out to your place anyhow. The process is the same. What you need is his flue-gas analyzer and him to read it for you. Tweak the inputs for the best output.
Now for combustion air and how it is handled. The following modifications are certainly only for the advanced do-it-yourselfer or you can hire a residential heating contractor to make these changes. Of the three things required for flame (fuel-air-ignition), one is combustion air; get it from outside. In high energy efficient furnaces and boilers, the combustion path is fully sealed and ducted to outside. Your heat making machine doesn't care whether the combustion air is warm or cold, it just wants air that contains oxygen. (Actually that's not totally true, cold air is denser and has more oxygen per unit volume; your burner prefers cold air.) If your burner has a direct connected duct that is running outside then we are nearly done.
Standard energy efficient machines may have three combustion air arrangements. One is a fully sealed path with a combustion air powered burner blower. A second arrangement is a sealed input path to an assist fan with gravity exit flue usually with a 'draft-hood.' A variation of this puts the assist fan on a ...