Wood stove, smoke in the house

[Shark]

This is our first time heating with a normal wood stove. (Had pellet stove years ago).

Drolet deco II. Double wall pipe 12' to roof, and another 9' outside. Straight up no bend.

After a couple hours of burning, you can smell smoke in the house.

Any thoughts?

Wood is seasoned, cutoffs from doors and windows and corners building the house.

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[loghousenut]

Try opening a window and inch. The place might be too tight to let combustion air in.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[rckclmbr428]

Do you have a cold air intake? Think of a dryer hose or fart fan vent hose ran from outside through the crawlspace and popping up right under the air vents for the wood stove. I'm assuming you've already burned in the stove previously and cooked all the seasoning off the pipes and stove?

[Ellsworth]

After a couple hours of burning, you can smell smoke in the house.

The time delay is really odd.

Oil /residue burn off is possible as Ronnie said, but that delay still seems long.
IDK about air tightness of the housing envelope like Ron said, it's a log home with chinking so it should have air supply.

Chimney outlet is above ridge line?

Maybe run a smoke test on windows at that end of the house, see if smoke penetrates from exterior to interior.

Try temporarily adding another section of stove pipe, will extra height solve the issue.

Double check the door gasket.

Try to note if the smell happens after it is being loaded with fuel (and note who is doing the stoking).

Maybe run a chimney sweep down the pipe to see if feels right (and/or scope it with a camera on a rope down).

Wind flags on poles, place a bunch around the yard and see where your micro drafts occur that push smoke around your property. Wind might be pushing it to the house?

I'm outta ideas.

The issue is a lot more common on a newly lite fire when the re-burner (catalytic?) plate hasn't fully heated up.

[Shark]

Try opening a window and inch. The place might be too tight to let combustion air in.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using TapatalkI'll give that a try. A few weeks ago I closed up all the crawlspace vents, I wonder if it sealed up a bit after that.

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[Shark]

Do you have a cold air intake? Think of a dryer hose or fart fan vent hose ran from outside through the crawlspace and popping up right under the air vents for the wood stove. I'm assuming you've already burned in the stove previously and cooked all the seasoning off the pipes and stove?I have one that I purchased with the stove, but didn't install it yet.

We did have one on our old pellet stove and it made a difference with the negative air pressure when it was running.

I guess I'll have to make a hole through a chink line one if these days.

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[Shark]

The time delay is really odd.

Oil /residue burn off is possible as Ronnie said, but that delay still seems long.
IDK about air tightness of the housing envelope like Ron said, it's a log home with chinking so it should have air supply.

Chimney outlet is above ridge line?

Maybe run a smoke test on windows at that end of the house, see if smoke penetrates from exterior to interior.

Try temporarily adding another section of stove pipe, will extra height solve the issue.

Double check the door gasket.

Try to note if the smell happens after it is being loaded with fuel (and note who is doing the stoking).

Maybe run a chimney sweep down the pipe to see if feels right (and/or scope it with a camera on a rope down).

Wind flags on poles, place a bunch around the yard and see where your micro drafts occur that push smoke around your property. Wind might be pushing it to the house?

I'm outta ideas.

The issue is a lot more common on a newly lite fire when the re-burner (catalytic?) plate hasn't fully heated up.

The first few times we burned, you could tell the paint was curing. After that no issues, until recently.

We followed the 3-2-10 rule about being high enough from the roof within 10'.

We have 9' going vertical above the roof penetration, roof pitch is only 6/12 so should be plenty high.

This is a non catalytic stove. I try to get a good initial for going hot and fast, lots of kindling.

That's for the input!

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[Shark]

We added a fresh air intake kit to the back of the stove. 3" pipe directly out the back, through a chink line outside.

Also had the stove pipe off to move it during the install. Good amount of ash on top of the fire brick, directly below the pipe at the top. Have that a good vacuum.

So far so good.

The dog is happy againhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20241225/e4b72fdb49d54d4e590179289784f04d.jpg

jandjloghome.blogspot.com

[panderson03]

Shark, whenever I have questions about wood stoves/wood burning I always post my questions at Hearth.com.
they are very experienced there.

[Shark]

Last night we had smoke again.

I went to Ace hardware today and picked up a 6" pipe brush, and 3 sections of 48" handles/extensions.

Decent amount of ash/buildup in the pipe itself.

But the worst was the screen at the top.

It's all clean now, will see if it burns better with the fresh air kit, might try not choking it down at night and let out burn hot.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20250106/f48e4403e9d85d6764c62a299fce3296.jpg

jandjloghome.blogspot.com