finally got no smoke with my cat stove. Exhaust smells like blacksmith's fire.

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777funk

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Sep 12, 2014
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MO
I fired my stove full of wood today front to back 2 layers thick and got it so hot that the paint stunk up the house and we had to go outdoors. Anyways, for the first time yet, there is NO smoke coming out the chimney and the window is clean. The smell doesn't smell like hickory or oak smoke but like a super hot gasses burning off blacksmith's fire.

My usual burns are a log of coals and one touching the coals and just enough to keep the house warm. I get smoke (a small stream about 2-3 feet coming from the chimney).

Today I'm burning a full load. It would be way too hot for just heating (I have the windows open) but I'm burning off the terrible paint smell (just painted this stove).

Anyways for the first time there's no smoke and the glass is cleaning itself (burning off). The smoke smells a littl sulfury like coals with plenty of air (Blacksmith's furnace).

Is my stove too big for the house size or should I just not worry about it? I don't think I could get away with cranking it full throttle like I am today if I wasn't curing the stinky paint.
 
I think you are smelling the paint but I think the only wood that has a 'sweet' smell that I burn is black cherry. It is awesome but the rest is just 'wood smoke' to me. The hotter the fire, the less it should smell because you have burned off the smoke in the cat.
 
When your catalytic converted is working it burns up the wood smoke particles, leaving behind only the hot water vapor and CO2 that you get with a clean coal or charcoal fire, so your exhaust doesn't smell like wood smoke anymore. If you smell wood smoke it means you're not burning as clean as you could be. With a small fire you might not be getting the cat hot enough to fully do its job, so you get some smoke. Another possibility is that you are seeing some water vapor coming out of the chimney. There is water in the wood, and even without water content, combustion creates some water. Water vapor can condense at the chimney then dissipate a few feet away.

The paint smell wears off pretty quickly.
 
Wood Duck said:
When your catalytic converted is working it burns up the wood smoke particles, leaving behind only the hot water vapor and CO2 that you get with a clean coal or charcoal fire, so your exhaust doesn't smell like wood smoke anymore.
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No. The cat is pretty efficient but absolutely does not convert all of the stuff in woodsmoke to co2 and water. Even in a lab when the thing is burning perfectly there will be a smell.
 
When my non-cat stove is burning with good secondaries, it doesn't smell like wood burning outside. It has a different smell that I can't describe.
 
RSNovi said:
When my non-cat stove is burning with good secondaries, it doesn't smell like wood burning outside. It has a different smell that I can't describe.
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Mine does that also. Smells weird.
 
RSNovi said:
When my non-cat stove is burning with good secondaries, it doesn't smell like wood burning outside. It has a different smell that I can't describe.
Click to expand...

To me the modern stoves, when burning clean, smell like hot car exhaust from an older carbureted engine set lean for emissions. Hot metal. Not fuelly or rich.
 
RSNovi said:
When my non-cat stove is burning with good secondaries, it doesn't smell like wood burning outside. It has a different smell that I can't describe.
Click to expand...

Kinda of an industrial smell that reminds me a bit like hot metal . . .
 
And then there is the flip side . . . a fire that is smoldering . . . smells "heavy" and "woodsy" . . . like creosote. :)
 
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