I have a Quadrafire Explorer II. When I go outside in the yard I smell a slight stinky smell when I have a fire going. I know it’s coming from my place. It’s not the wood as it even can be smelled when it’s good smelling wood and the smell is good inside. I get my stove pipe/chimney swept once a year by a chimney cleaning service. However, they don’t appear to clean the cap at the top of the pipe. I am wondering if the smell is coming from this as it is covered by dry, black powdery looking soot. Any ideas?
I sometimes get a funny almost medicinal chemical smell. I think that what you are smelling is in smoke all the time but since you are getting a very complete burn it’s just that you are not smelling the ‘good’ wood smoke smells from a chimney billowing smoke.
You will notice a smell that is hard to describe. It isn't that hearty wood smoke smell we were used to growing up with. Its more of a bitter smell.
This^^^ Almost reminds me of our old oil furnace as a kid, with a tinge of naphtha to it....no smoke tho, so ya know it’s burning cleaner than if the chimney were billowing smoke.
I get the same sort of smell outside, it smells like a campfire at start up, smells like a smoker when it's warming up/almost there, and running hot has the (no smoke from stack) odd smoke smell without the good smoke smell.
I always thought the outside smoke odor changes when my catalytic combustor is engaged. Makes the smoke (or lack of smoke actually) smell different in my opinion. Not sure if you have a combustor in your stove or not?
We have a Quadra-fire Explorer 2 as well. Same smell we get when burning. Tough smell to describe but I am sure it’s the same smell we get. Every time I smell it i always ask my self what makes it smell like that.
Once my secondaries kick in and there's zero visible smoke coming from the chimney but rather a "smoke trail" or whatever you'd wanna call it (clear gassy looking stuff coming from the chimney) I do sometimes smell a strange hard to describe "burnt" smoke smell. I don't have creosote in the chimney so as someone else said, it's likely just the smell of that secondary smoke.
Cat stove exhaust doesn't smell good if you catch a whiff. On one hand it's good because the stove isn't polluting. I miss that woods tove smell though. A guy a few blocks away burns though. I can get my fix there.
So thanks for the input everyone. Sounds like everything is normal. I was just concerned something was wrong. I was even concerned something might be burning somewhere like my roof. But looking carefully outside at the roof I can’t see anything nor could I find anything wrong when I go up into my attic. In fact in the attic I smell absolutely nothing. I am guessing then that this weird burning/plastic/acrid like funky smell just means I am burning efficiently?
I'm going to say, "Yes" and I'll add this... When I was actively building/firing my rocket stove (outdoors), I noticed the same smell- it was the first time I'd ever smelled that when burning wood in any setting. So, I assert that after a few seasons (even with our smoke dragon of a stove), I have dialed it in well enough to replicate a burn which I know to be clean and smoke free (as the rocket was). Edit: See a "Batch box" style rocket core in action here: Refractory Batch box core
