Talk to me about draft inducers

Yep, it has a flip-down curtain that covers about 2" of the top of the opening.

 

Selkirt makes a double wall T section- I would think that would solve your draft inducer mounting problem you likly need to make a short piece to direct the blower output up the flue rather than just blowing straight in. Kinda like I used to do with a T and a shop vac to reverse cold flue problems when starting wood furnace in basement. Take cap off T and shove hose from output of vac in so it blew up the flue.

 

I'm just having a hard time getting my head around it happening during reload and not on cold start. Very strange indeed.

 

I cannot speak about the O.P.'s stove but regarding my own stove, a cold start is not a problem because there just is not much, if any, smoke and certainly no fly- ash available to spill into the room. So if the stove does spill air into the room, that is about all it is - air. When the stove is well- involved and full of fuel, or more likely half- full, that is where there is a LOT of smoke, ash and general stove- generated debris to spill into the room. So the answer, at least in my case, is that while the stove may always leak, on cold starts the stove is not yet producing enough byproducts to actually cause a problem.

And my stove does leak on startup, but the only way I know that is the odor of smoke in the house, again because there is just not enough to make a 'cloud', set off the smoke detector or make a mess in the house.

Brian

 

Op you wouldn't happen to have one of those fine mesh screen caps on the chimney would ya?

 

Nope, it's a "wide mesh"(at least 3/4" expanded steel) cap, and it's clear. Yeah, nothing on start up because I make top-down fires, so the secondaries light up within 30 seconds, and the flue gets warm fast. Adding a double-wall tee is an interesting idea, Chris.

 

Nuts! Well I'm out of ideas lol.

 

Yes, I am getting tired of filling the house with smoke as well and exactly like you, I try to let the fire get burning hot etc. I am thinking of ordering two 45s to replace the elbow; ordering because no shop here has 45s, in the stove pipe to see if that helps. I am not going to spend the money on a draft inducer; I make Scrooge look good. Madison from ESW here. Manual states "smokes into room" is from weak draft; yet, members on here tell me that my chimney is tall enough; so maybe the 45s will help; looking at the smoke from a fluid dynamics angle I can see where the abrupt change in direction might cause a problem. Hopefully this evil cold spell will break soon.

 

Member chris brings up an interesting suggestion...attach something "blowey" to the clean-out on the tee. I have very easy access to the tee, and I could fab something up that would allow a small fan to be placed inline below the tee, maybe behind a sliding door/gate of some sort. Would have to worry about moisture, however. Sometimes that tee cap is full of melted frost from the chimney. Hmmm, I'll have to think about this some more, and mess with some designs this spring.

 

First fire of the season last night, and I was reminded that I haven't solved this issue yet. I had ALL SUMMER! ;-)

Now I'm thinking of trying an OAK. It can't hurt, right? Maybe I'll order that side shelf for the IS at the same time.