House smoke out, where am I screwing up?

Need good dry "seasoned" wood....

 

Chimney sweep found plugged cap and "wet" creosote. The solution was a good cleaning. But he mentioned if I burn wet wood, I would have to clean the spark arrestor again.

He recommended that I upgrade the spark arrestor to a larger mushroom style with more screen surface area.

Papadave, yes on all of it. I was recently delivered wet wood that I was trying to burn. It turned into more smoldering that burning for 4-5 days

 

Well... looks like it's all good LJ. Dry seasoned wood is the long term solution, cleaning the cap screen, short term. Cool... sounds like your in business...

 

Keep an eye on that cap and keep hoarding wood. Glad you found the issue.

 

Amazing how quick the cap can plug with not so good firewood.
Lesson learned....
If you get a different spark arrestor with more screen surface, yet still can't get good firewood.......same problem, with a slightly longer time between cleaning.
Maybe another day or two.
Most of us have had similar problems.......you're in gooder company.

 

Good results! It's always good to check the easy stuff first .

 

Really glad you got the flue and cap checked. Speaking from experience (cat clogging), as long as you know what you are dealing with, you can cope. May be a pain, but you can make things work. Good luck with it, and I hope the issue isn't too frustrating this year. Things will only get better.

 

Good to hear you got it.

 

It always comes back to unseasoned wood. I would venture a guess that 99% of all wood burning problems are less than ideal wood. Even if someone thinks their wood is seasoned, it's most likely not.

 

Another thing to look for is if you put new pipe and new stove, then you will have oil all over the place. Which is going to creat smoke. If you dont burn outside for the first time then you are going to get an oil smell burn. I burn inside with no out side burn and that oil smelled. Just an idea.

 

Just a quick update after "two" days. House isn't getting smoked out but now it appears that the air inlet may be plugged.

Symptom: The "good" wood only smolders unless I open the door. This is with the primary air control fully open.

Is it possible that when I smoked out the cap/house that I plugged the "air inlet"?

Unfortunately, my owner's manual doesn't show that area at all

 

I'd say it's highly unlikely that you clogged the air intake unless a critter built a nest in there or you stuffed a rag in it on purpose. I'd check the cap again but if you have known to be dry wood and still the same issue then you have some sort of draft issue whether it be the ceramic wool blocking the flue somewhat or you need a high wind cap (they can help at times even without wind issues) etc.

One thing I'd like to add to this whole mess.... If I came and put a stove in YOUR house and you paid me to do it I would be there lighting a fire in it to see what could be causing the issue. I've done this for numerous customers over the years and although 85% of the time it has been the wood they were burning or their wood burning practices there have definitely been times where something happened with the liner, the ceramic wool blanket, the chimney needed to be extended etc. etc. I always brought my own wood that was absolutely known to be good and got a hot rolling fire going and monitored it for at least 1-2 hours.

I would suggest you ask them to come and see what they can do to make it right, if they don't I'd be a little upset. It might be good to try to find an old dry as a popcorn fart pallet and cut it up really good and see if it burns. If that fails you know for sure it's not your wood lol.

 

Refresh my memory....how "good" is this "good" firewood?
Hard to start, hard to keep lit, sizzles for a while once burning?

 

The wood in question is between 10% to 25% moisture content... split and checked in the middle. Before I used the "bad" wood, it burned VERY nice. Basically, for the last two months it has worked beautifully.

Now when I close the door, it chokes out. When I open the door, it burns nice now.

For example: Before I started typing this, my good wood was choked out and smoldering with the door closed. I opened the door and it went from smoldering to a roaring fire in five minutes.

My logic tells me that air flow isn't working right.

 

x2

 

Something is definitely going on with the draft. It is time that the installation company stepped up and fixed it.

 

Try this to eliminate the question of dry wood. Go to Home Depot and get a bundle of cedar starter shingles for $9. You can use them for this test and also use them for great fire starters for the rest of the season. Grap them by the thin end and rip them like paper into 2" strips and make a small pile of them in your insert. Light them up, get them going, and then shut the door. If they dont go up like gasoline then you have an air inlet problem (now that you have fixed your exhaust problem). If they burn like gasoline then the wood you are trying to burn is not dry enough and your insert is fine.

My EPA insert is awesome with dry wood. If the wood is around 20% is will hardly burn at all. It is very finicky when it comes to moisture content. Very dry wood is a must. The first year or two is tough until you get enough wood on hand to ensure it has dried long enough. You mentioned oak a few times. It can take 3 years for oak dry enough. I have oak that has been cut, split, and single stacked top covered for 2 years and it wont burn. At 3 years its an inferno.

 

Sounds exactly like the problem I had. Once you get the fire going well, can you shut the door at all, and maintain fire?
Have you seen this...........http://www.hearthstoneparts.com/cgi/display.cgi?item_num=8491
Split open a bunch, and use only the lowest MC stuff. See how that works.
I'm thinkin' you got into some "not so good" wood.
I guess there's a possibility the intake has a hairball or something.....

 

Having wood burn well with the door ajar is not an effective test for determining the quality of the wood. With the door ajar and blowing on the load it's like a forge and even pretty wet wood will fire under that condition. In fact I would say it's the opposite, wet wood burns ok with the door open but not well at all without open air source. That's almost the definition of an EPA stove, limited air needing drier wood than can be used in a smoke dragon or open fireplace.

To eliminate the wood as a problem do what others have suggested, get some wood (pallet, shingles, kiln dried) and see how that fires with the door closed and see if you can control the burn with your air control. If you can't burn that it's the stove (and/or chimney), if you can, it's the wood.

 

Yeah, I like jatoxico's suggestion. Go find a couple old bone dry oak pallets (so dry they are grey but not water logged) and cut em into pieces and see how they burn. You have nothing to lose plus pallet hunting is fun. I bet you could find some at a company that sells stone or wood pellets pretty easily.