Ideal Steel - lots of smoke exiting into room from back of stove via the tertiary air inlet!

That loud bang sounds serious; more so than the smoke to me.

 

At the time of the smoke 'incident' you said your cat probe read 800 and you traced the smoke escaping through the secondary cat air intake. Interesting circumstances.

My IS has had issues with poor draft in really windy conditions and other than that my draft is excellent. My IS would 'burp' from a downdraft with the main air at notch #3 and because the stove is so tight it would lift the lid slightly. I have only seen this happen 2x since I've owned it.
I have never seen a smokey type leak from either air intakes. I have had weak drafts when reloading or starting cold but nothing like you have mentioned.

I'm going to tag Brian BDF to see what he thinks of your situation.

 

I can't speak for your situation OP but I run a 24" horizontal pipe to transition through my exterior wall into my lined masonry chimney for the past two years. That is by far the dirtiest part of the system when cleaning time comes. It bothers me so much that this year I will be knocking down the exterior chimney and doing away with any horizontal pipe all together. I will be going straight up through the ceiling and into class A. Last year when I cleaned the elbow and horizontal pipe, I bet the pipe was approximately 1/3 restricted from the powdery build up inside.

I've not experienced smoke exiting the rear or proprietary holes, but I do get quite a bit of smoke spillage on reloads, even after "preheating" the chimney

 

chance04 , do you use single or double wall inside your home?
I'm not sure this has anything to do with his smoke issues, it's more about keeping the indoor flue pipe warm. It's something Tom and Lorin mentioned to me when I picked up my IS a couple years ago.

 

I'd be curious what other IS owners can add to this. Can anyone else tag a few of the IS regulars

 

already did BDF and Unhsdm.. there's a group in Bradford VT Hollywood cannot think of others

 

Brad38 ,JA600L . Can u guys take a peek at this thread please

 

I think a backpuff could have been what set up a chain reaction. The backpuff caused the bang (lid) and reversed the airflow. The backpuff shot air out the stove and the momentum made it reverse draft. Once it started to reverse draft it isn't going to just reverse itself a second time and go back to normal unless something drastic happens (human intervention) Other conditions probably helped it along including the high winds and possible clogged horizontal pipe.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Time for an update...

Spoke to Woodstock today - they said if smoke cant go up the chimney it will look for another exit. Reasons for not getting up chimney include
Downdraft
Blockage

Makes sence to me. Yesterday was wicked with wind - but not the windiest we've had. For now I'll chalk it up to downdraft, and what Baba said also makes sence. They're could have been a back puff to start it - I Can't say as I was out of the room at the time this started.

When I got home tonight I had Did some inspecting and cleaning.

All looks ok under the top lid - vacuumed up the layer of ash covering everything, inspected the cat - looks good not blocked. The rope gasket the cat sits on breaks apart at slightest touch - while intact now I'll replace it for next burning season.

Swept the whole chimney including:
Inside vertical double wall pipe
Inside horizontal double wall pipe to through-wall thimble
Outside class A pipe

Happy to report that outside had only a 1/16 or less black fuzz coating on the inside. Clear sight up to and through the opening at the cap. Horizontal section & wall thimble were clean - only a bit of grey ash type coating. Vertical much the same as the horizontal. In other words - no blockage or constrictions. The whole system is Excel ICC pipe.

Cleaned out the firebox and ash pan receptical, washed the glass, loaded her up and the stove room is once again warm and getting hot! Nice fire going now.

I'll keep everyone posted should I experience this again. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts about this.

Regards,
Gpsfool

 

Currently it's single. It will be dble when I make the change to go straight up

 

Yep, as others have said, the back of the stove leaking smoke is through the automatic draft opening to feed the combustor. I have had mine leak but only a time or two when the firebox was hot and full but not actually burning, the combustor was not running and the chimney was cold. It all adds up to a stove that effectively does not have a chimney to draft the smoke out of the stove so it leaks out of the next- highest hole in the stove, which is about 3/4 of the way up the stove. The only other time I had it happen was again a full and hot firebox but without much of any flame, a barely running cat. and closing the chimney damper to try and keep some heat inside the stove to light the cat.- smoke POURED out of the cat. vent in the back.

I also had a very loud 'bang' in my stove last week or so, after continuous running at fairly high temperatures of the stovetop held at 600F. No obvious damage that I can see inside or outside but it was loud enough that it sounded like a weld breaking under a lot of stress. The other thing that will make an Ideal Steel 'bang' is a strong back- puff (a little explosion in the stove from collecting combustible gas and then having it ignite and burn all at once); that can lift the stove top a bit and of course when it lands back on the stove it makes quite a bit of noise. That would explain both the bang and at least some of the smoke in the house because the stove vents everywhere it can when this happens, and if it actually lifts the stove top, that will allow a lot of smoke to escape.

I am having a hard time getting my chimney to draft because it is pretty tall but virtually all of it is in an enclosed but not insulated or warm second floor and chimney chase. It is probably around 40F for the length of the chimney, maybe cooler for the last three or four feet of the chase and the outside cap. It does not want to draft in the first place and once it is warmed up it still will not generate a strong draft. It might be that I cannot heat the whole chimney but I kind of doubt that because a lot of people have entire SS insulated chimneys outside and they draft well.... after they are hot of course. Hopefully this will all improve when the second floor is heated and only the attic and chase sections are cold.

Brian

 

I have experienced the backdraft a couple of times. I also have a similar chimney cap to yours, but mine does incorporate a screen. My screen clogs about twice a year. In fact, yesterday I almost fell off the roof trying to clear it. Once I cleared the screen, the stove performed a lot better.

 

You might want to think about a safety harness if you have to do this a couple of times a year; falling off a roof is serious business even if it does not kill you. Be safe, OK?

 

I am already designing plans for a new contraption to clean it from the ground

 

I have seen devices for sale that pull a brush through a chimney from the bottom up and then back down, all done with cables. A little pricey and not sure if it will work with anything but masonry chimneys though.

When I had to lengthen my original chimney (I musta' taken' that thing out to dinner twenty times- nothing!) we ended up just scrapping all the masonry chimney from slightly below the thimble on the first floor right on up. So the new chimney has a Tee that makes a thimble and then reaches up through the second floor, the attic and out the roof. But instead of just capping the bottom of the Tee, I put a few lengths of chimney on the bottom also and made a quick- disconnect cover for the bottom. The lower part of the original masonry chimney is still in place, so the new chimney is inside it (although the clay liner has been removed) but with a cut- out to get to the bottom of the new chimney, which is about five feet from the cellar floor. All this so that I can clean the entire chimney from inside the house, day or night, winter or summer. The only problem doing it this way is that it takes about a gazillion lengths of cleaning rod, used one at a time, to work up the chimney; the same is true of doing it from the roof but doing it from the bottom means starting on the floor and working at an angle something like 20 times.

Brian

 

The only time I've ever had smoke in the room is when I leave the air control open too long on a large, fresh, new load and the stove really gets going. It makes a vibrating, rumbling sound as the fire at the top of plate bores holes into the wood. (Kinda cool to watch for a second) The smoke leaks out a little until I throttle it down. The "bang" you're hearing could possibly be the plate flexing and moving, as it's designed to do so. Otherwise, I would agree with others in that you have intermittent draft issues from time to time. Someone here has mentioned the ratio you loose overall chimney height per foot of horizontal pipe run? That 19ft overall is more than enough if straight vertical, but the horizontal pipe does lower that, effecting draft.

 

Even in a water pipe in your house every elbow is treated as a foot of pipe flow restriction. I am not sure how it works for flue gas but reducing the equivalent height by a foot for every elbow might give a decent first approximation. After that you still need to account for gas frictional effects going through the stack so I would reduce effective height by maybe a foot for every 2 feet of horizontal run just to start to get a feel for how much vertical I might need to add to offset it.

 

I wasn't at my MIL's much of the time that the Buck 91 was running, but once when I was there it made a loud bang. My first thought was that maybe a weld had broken, and I looked as best I could but found nothing. I emailed Buck and they thought it could be the steel side of the firebox flexing suddenly, as the box heated or cooled. After they told me that, I can believe it based on the qualities of the sound I heard.

 

"I usually engage cat @500-600 degrees on the probe, temp rose above that while I was in kitchen. It's been that high (800) before prior to cat engagement with no issues."

Are you engaging when the cat probe reaches that temp? I run it till flue temp is 500°- 600° the cat probe is usually 800°- 1000°. You are primarily reading flame temp with the cat probe when the sled is open. You should engage the cat based of of flue temp or surface temp not the catalyst probe.

I have not had smoke out of the tertiary but have had it come out the primary intake. Those times were when outside temps were warmer (40°+).