Drafting Issues?

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Stax

Stax

Minister of Fire
Dec 22, 2010
941
Southeastern PA
Good evening folks. This will be my fourth season with the Lopi Declaration. Tonight, during dinner I decided to start my daily evening fire. With the door cracked about an inch, smoke began spilling into the living room. To further test, I closed the door. Smoke somehow managed passed the gaskets. Guess I need to change those. Anyhow, cleaned out the box, vacuumed the blowers and everything else. I will go up on the roof tonight and sweep to see if I have a blockage. Shouldn't though, as I swept right at the end of the season and have been consistently burning wood <20%. The weather is unseasonably warm right now, maybe a factor as well. What is your take on my drafting issues?
 
Forgot to add. Smoke has never spilled into living room while door is ajar even the slightest bit.
 
Probably has allot to do with the warm weather
 
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I have a declaration II. This happens to me in warm moist weather as well. My gaskets are good and the smoke still gets out. This is expected with negative pressure I believe.

I do top down starts in weather like this now. Works much better.
 
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What you described happens to me every time I fire my stove up when cold. I have grown to expect it. But considering my fire doesn't go out all winter, it's really not a big deal to me. Once the stove gets warm, the draft is perfect.

My stove is in the basement, with about 32' of chimney. From what I can figure, the chimney is on the outside of the house, about 6 feet above the roof line, so it really doesn't have a chance of warming up when the stove isn't lit. Especially considering it has been in the 50's and 60's outside the last few days. So negative pressure happens.

Starting up a cold stove, I point an electric heater towards the stove pipe for about 30 minutes to force the draft up the chimney. Then start a small bunch of twigs with the door open. Steadily adding small bits of wood to increase the fire, still with the door open. Once the fire gets hot enough, I can close the door with the air fully open for a while, then eventually closing the air down a bit. This should be enough to warm the chimney up and create a good draft.

The worst thing I can do on a cold chimney is to close the door and cut the air off. Smoke will pour out of the air inlet, even when fully closed. Though your stove doesn't normally do this, the mild weather was most likely the cause.
 
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MarylandGuy said:
What you described happens to me every time I fire my stove up when cold. I have grown to expect it. But considering my fire doesn't go out all winter, it's really not a big deal to me. Once the stove gets warm, the draft is perfect.

My stove is in the basement, with about 32' of chimney. From what I can figure, the chimney is on the outside of the house, about 6 feet above the roof line, so it really doesn't have a chance of warming up when the stove isn't lit. Especially considering it has been in the 50's and 60's outside the last few days. So negative pressure happens.

Starting up a cold stove, I point an electric heater towards the stove pipe for about 30 minutes to force the draft up the chimney. Then start a small bunch of twigs with the door open. Steadily adding small bits of wood to increase the fire, still with the door open. Once the fire gets hot enough, I can close the door with the air fully open for a while, then eventually closing the air down a bit. This should be enough to warm the chimney up and create a good draft.

The worst thing I can do on a cold chimney is to close the door and cut the air off. Smoke will pour out of the air inlet, even when fully closed. Though your stove doesn't normally do this, the mild weather was most likely the cause.
Click to expand...

On my first start up of my Super 27 smoke was pouring out of it. Cold outside run chimney. I actually thought that I had a defect stove then I remembered the old stove doing this from time to time. Not a good feeling on a initial fire up smoke coming into the room. I will try the heat gun trick on the next cold start up and leave the door up a crack with a small fan running to quicken up the startup.
 
MarylandGuy said:
What you described happens to me every time I fire my stove up when cold. I have grown to expect it. But considering my fire doesn't go out all winter, it's really not a big deal to me. Once the stove gets warm, the draft is perfect.

My stove is in the basement, with about 32' of chimney. From what I can figure, the chimney is on the outside of the house, about 6 feet above the roof line, so it really doesn't have a chance of warming up when the stove isn't lit. Especially considering it has been in the 50's and 60's outside the last few days. So negative pressure happens.

Starting up a cold stove, I point an electric heater towards the stove pipe for about 30 minutes to force the draft up the chimney. Then start a small bunch of twigs with the door open. Steadily adding small bits of wood to increase the fire, still with the door open. Once the fire gets hot enough, I can close the door with the air fully open for a while, then eventually closing the air down a bit. This should be enough to warm the chimney up and create a good draft.

The worst thing I can do on a cold chimney is to close the door and cut the air off. Smoke will pour out of the air inlet, even when fully closed. Though your stove doesn't normally do this, the mild weather was most likely the cause.
Click to expand...

I have the same configuration as MarylandGuy. I always get smoke spillage in the room when I start a cold stove, even when it is warm outside. I used a hairdryer which I stuff in the box and let run a few minutes to get the draft going. Then I start a small fire with twigs and pallet wood.
 
Could be a cap starting to plug up. While going over the stove make sure the bypass control is functioning correctly.
 
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