Will I need a taller chimney?

NE wind direction but not much of a breeze. Can't even get kindling to burn. The chimney is clean only been used for a week. The stove had about 1 " of ashes and coals from oak over night burn raked to the front. I added a couple small cedar splits to start and closed the door. Air intake wide open and damper open. The wood is clean and dry. It started slowly but burned and i added a couple bigger kenntucky splits to get through part of the day and kentucky usually burns like pine. Not as hot as hardwood and leaves only ashes.
The splits just sat there nothing happening. The cedar quit burning also. I opened the door and the cedar started gleaming but no flames.

Since the kentucky didn't want to burn I took it out, put in some cedar kindling. very dry 8-10 or so. It took about 10 minutes for that to finally catch with the door wide open. Also opened a window and outside door on the house to see if that would help, it made no difference. When the kindling burned well i added a couple small pieces of dry cedar and it started burning after a while very slowly, door still open. Every time i closed the door it all died down. and would very slowly reduce the wood to ashes from the bottom up. So it burned but no flames.
We have NE wind right now and that is our problem wind. Although yesterday and so far today hardly a breeze. The stove is cold now and i won't light it until tonight. it's too warm. I wonder if we need to add to the chimney. We have 15' right now and it requires 13'. We are 2 ' above the ridge of the house and there are no close by taller trees or buildings etc.
Right now this isn't a big deal because it is quite warm at about 50 outside. But N NE wind is what usually brings the really bad cold weather in.

 

Lucy, I think you would probably be okay, I'm betting the real problem you're having with draft. Is that it's so warm outside.

 

Yes, that could be and i hope you are right. Chimney is rather expensive. I guess i will find out tomorrow night it's supposed to go down in to the low 30 and the wind is supposed to stay NE.

 

It's hard to get a good draft unless you have a big temperature differential between indoors and out. If you still have a problem that's solely based on wind direction, they do make chimney caps that adjust to the wind direction. I don't know much about them, but it could be an option for you.

 

My stove won't draft at all either Lucy without cool / cold temps outside. Wind effects it a lot too. I agree with Canadian border VT & lukem ... probably just not cold enough.

 

I'm thinking just a combination of short stack and warm weather, and being new to wood burning. I know my stove runs way better these days, and the only thing that changed is I got older. With time you'll find (assuming wood moisture % is adequate) your way.

I've always run a short chimney, and briefly considered adding some more, but after putting on my thinking cap, I can make it run great.

 

Thank you all for the great help. Got a long learning curve ahead. We'll see what happens when the temps drop later this week.

Tell you what though - it's an awful lot of fun to get to play around with things you don't know much about and learn. One of my all time favorite things to do.
I was one of those weird kids who either sat somewhere in a tree or was reading things like encyclopidias and later in college took a lot of courses nobody understood why. Shear curiosity was my only excuse. Getting a bit old for the tree thing now.

 

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

If you have any sheet metal around ( even cardboard might work ) and the chimney top is easy to get to, you could make a temporary extension to see if another 3 foot section would help. It would be roughly a 20% improvement .

Course, if 3 more feet makes it 100% more difficult to clean out then a slow draft might be easier to live with in the shoulder season.

 

Sounds like you have a adequate chimney setup(better than many!). Do you have a moisture meter yet? Your burn symptoms indicate wet fuel. Very common story. New stove. New operator. Likely newly acquired fuel supply. Fire starts with door open but largely fails after closing it. The warm weather is not helping either as mentioned. Very frustrating.

And maybe I am wrong and your fuel is verified dry?

 

Not having the temperature differential between the inside and outside air, as everyone mention can be the issue, but there are other factors,
like Short chimneys do not draft as well as Tall chimneys. Also if the Chimney flue is larger than the exhaust size of the stove. So if you have a 6" or 8" stove exhaust , your Best draft will come from having a 6" or 8" stainless liner inside the chimney.

 

6" round ductwork pipe, or the cheap single wall stovepipe would work for a temporary test of adding height too.
I agree with everybody else, things will work better with colder weather.
Also, IIRC, you have a tee right above the stove (barometric damper?) thats a good access point to blow a hair dryer in there to get the draft going on a cold start, if it gives you trouble.

 

You need a hot fire when it's the same temp or warmer outside. It's simply down to rising air. A small fire cools too much, going up the chimney. In colder weather it still cools as much but there is still a temperature and subsequent density difference keeping the air rising

 

I'm with you on the temp differential making a big difference.

But as a guy who has run a short chimney for 5 years now, I have a somewhat different take on how they draft. As I've said in other posts, once a short chimney warms up, it doesn't know it's a short chimney. Sure, harder to get going off the line though.

 

Cold start.
I usually put a larger split on the left, a larger split on the right and start a kindling fire in the middle . (air all the way to the left ). After that gets going pretty good I add three medium splits on top (with the air straight out ) . In about 15 minutes I'll go back and adjust the air further to the right to knock the flames down a little bit.
It is a little fussy about too little air too soon.
I'll get a bit of smoldering if I try to choke it down too soon. I hate making smoke.
iirc, we have 16 feet of chimney not counting the T and the black pipe to the chimney.

 

Thanks, billb3. That is a good idea, I'll try that once this cold spell lets up.

 

Yes, we have a moisture meter. The wood is all pretty dry. It was felled in winter of 2016 when we cleared an acre for the house, stacked and covered outside for a year and then split and stacked in the wood shed since spring this year. The average is around 14 or so depending on the wood, the pine is usually the highest at 15 or 16. The cedar is the lowest at 10-12 some less. We don't have to buy wood. So are working on a 3 year + supply from our own trees. It has been very rainy here lately but i brought the wood into the house a couple of days before i used it. So overall i really don't think the wood is the problem. The warm outside temps could be. Being a spoiled southerner i like it warmer than a lot of you guys up north. may have to get used to that.

 

The chimney size is right we bought everything to fit for a new installation.