My Ideal Steel Is Pooping Creosote onto the Hearth Pad

If this is damage caused by the forklift who would be responsible?

 

Shortly after installing my stove we experienced a severe storm, with rain blowing sideways that got under the chimney cap and ran down to the stove. Something like that could bring some ash with it?

The spatter around the droplets suggest a very thin liquid. I don't have much experience with flowing liquid creosote, but I imagined it to be more viscous than that.

 

So I just took a look at the Ideal Steel manual, and going by the line drawing on pg. 29, it looks like the secondary air supply, which is where your stove is producing that 'stuff', feeds the chamber above the 'Fireback Assembly', which is the stainless steel plate with the perforations at the top of the I.S. firebox. Now that plate is pitched downward, toward the rear, at a significant angle- maybe 20 degrees guessing by the drawing. I cannot tell if the air is fed up the side or the back of the stove but up the side would make sense. Either way, I guess if you had a smoldering pile of wood going, and shut down the draft air, it <might> be possible for some of the smoke to go back through the perforations and condense in the air intake channel. ?? It is really impossible to tell from this sectioned line- drawing but that is all I can come up with as to how it might happen in a correctly fitted stove.

The only other way I can think of is that there is some opening or leak from the firebox into the intake channel for the secondary air; that would allow very wet smoke to allow some creosote to condense in the intake path. ??

My stove has made so much creosote that it literally runs down the inside of the ash pan door as a liquid but nothing has ever leaked from the firebox to the outside (disregarding the flue of course).

I think someone is going to have to carefully inspect your stove to know what is going on, and that may take diss-assembly and / or a flexible bore scope to find the source(s) of that liquid inside the intake.

Brian

 

I have a little story for you.
A year ago on New Years day my wife fell off a step stool and hit her head on the corner of the microwave cart and needed sewed up and I had a fire going in the shop so I turned the air down when we left. It was really cold that day and when I came home there was black water dripping out of the stove pipe and the shop had a strange burnt smell in it. So very dry wood but too low of air caused the condensation which can happen no matter how dry your wood is. This was only a few hours also, can you imagine what running a low flue temp all the time would lead to.

 

Yep, creosote is a by- product of most solids that are burned. All firewood will make creosote, wet firewood just makes more of it.

I had a stove that had a long ash pan and the easiest way to light the stove was to roll up newspaper, slide it in the ash box end first and light it. The newspaper to was up against the steel walls of the draft door left streaks of dark brown, sticky creosote behind.... and my newspaper was pretty dry

Dry wood will produce creosote, it is just that it is much easier to get dry wood up to temperature and burning hot enough that that creosote is consumed in the fire.

Brian

 

Any farther progress on where the leak its coming from and what solutions have been offered?

 

Pictures from inside the rear air port were provided to Woodstock which showed creosote coming from high up inside the stove. This was Thursday of last week, waiting to hear back.

 

I certainly hope it gets resolved for you soon

 

I purchased a higher-end borescope and shot a ton of photos. There is a serious learning curve to this device, and trying to take pictures of the inside of the Ideal Steel is like trying to shove a banana up a wildcat's azz. In any event, here are a few of the better ones.

 

Are those more metal shavings?

 

I'm still thinking either a weld in there popped when hit, or wasn't done quite right from the git go.

 

Is it possible that rain water got in the flue, down the pipe, and into the bottom of your stove?

 

Here is my plate in the same affected area. Mine looks brand new. I looked in and it's dry and clean in the cavity. No creosote. I can see all the paint color still.

 

All but impossible. There is a chimney cap



and 25 feet below that, a 90-degree cleanout T



It would be impossible for rainwater to make it around the chimney cap, hook 90-degree turn through the cleanout T, get through the cat and then into the air intake. This issue has been going on now for two months with no resolution. I dropped close to $300.00 on the borescope and am ceasing all further investigative efforts. My request of Woodstock will be to either replace the stove body or come and take the thing away. Mind you, I love this stove and want it to work properly, however, this was a purchase for the long term, not some $49.00 Wal Mart grill. I was pre-order # 1. No one else has a stove that is doing this, and it's time for Woodstock to stand behind their product.

 

What about ABF freight? As far as we know yours is the only one that's been damaged upon delivery too. You might be right that Woodstock made a mistake, but what if ABF did damage it and cause this? Then it would not be Woodstocks fault or problem at all. Did you sign for it after the forks hit it?

 

This could needlessly devolve into a very, very unpleasant scenario. I noted external delivery damage on the shipping receipt, but it would obviously be impossible to know that a weld had been popped inside the stove at time of delivery. I have dealt with ABF on delivery damage claims before and "no" is 1/3 of their vocabulary. I would have to sue ABF and Woodstock which would be very lamentable. Both companies would have to hire defense counsel and send witnesses to testify, the cost of which would far exceed the cost of a new stove. Under cross examination, I'd have to ask a Woodstock rep if creosote dripping onto the floor is normal for one of their stoves. The answer would of course be "No". OK, what is causing creosote to drip out of this stove and onto the floor? Delivery damage or faulty manufacture? "We'd have to tear the stove apart to find out". As for ABF, "Do your trailer-loading best practices include spearing pallets, getting stuck and then banging them up and down on the trailer to get them loose? "No". In other words, right back where we started. Woodstock has a "no questions asked" six month return policy. I could be a real bouchedag, return the stove and then turn around and order another one to get free shipping. That's scummy at best and is not going to happen. The most direct path to resolution is replacement of the stove body; no need for a new cat, heat shield, top burners, side shields, ash lip, ash pan, grate etc. Just the stove body. The fact that I spent nearly $300.00 on a borescope is an indication that the current problem will not be tolerated. As before, I was pre-order #1.

 

I have an automotive emissions smoke tester. If I have time this weekend, I will take that plate back off and smoke that cavity. Then I will be able to see where all that path leads. It puts the smoke in under a light pressure. So it will find voids.

That may help answer your question as to if a weld is broken or if there is path leading to creosote forming areas.

 

I would send the stove back on the 6 month return policy in a heart beat, then order a new one and be done with it.

 

That's probably the best simplest solution to this unfortunately. And I'd be up front about it. I don't think they would question it given the circumstances.