They only were a replacement dealer for me for the warranty claim on the old VC as the other stopped dealing with VC. They worked with me to replace the VC warrantied stove with a BK. They weren't happy about it nor do they know anything about BKs.
BK Ashford Smoke Smell Follow Up
- Thread starter Calentarse
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blueguy
Feeling the Heat
No I haven't. Working with Chris now to find a solution. Will repost once I've gotten it squared away with him.
So BKVP sent me a new gasket, cement and new, flatter hardware to replace the previous hardware holding the bracket in place around the outside of the glass. Neither of these items fixed my smoke smell issues. I have also put in double-wall ventis pipe (6' in the house replacing single wall) and repainted it all. No improvement. This was all completed at the end of the burning season in April.
At the beginning of the burning season this year, I noticed I still had the smoke smell issue. However, the smoke was now coming from the right hand side instead of the left. We had altered it!
So, back at it. BKVP and I have been speaking and we have agreed that the next course of action is to extend the chimney. Today, my chimney guy came out. He completely cleaned out and inspected the stove; looked over all the welds; inspected every part of the stove; gave me four more feet and decided that the work I did in April was unsatisfactory. He removed the gasket and completely redid it with a gasket of his choosing. He believes that somehow gases/smoke were actually exiting the stove BEHIND the gasket because, as he removed it carefully, he inspected the back of it and noticed discoloration (brown, not black so it was not from the cement). He also indicated that since the smoke was on the outside of the gasket in these areas he wasn't certain that the smoke wasn't actually seeping through the gasket. My main question for an engineer: WHY IS SMOKE LEAKING OUT INSTEAD OF AIR LEAKING IN?
Anyway. I have to wait for the cement to cure for 24 hours (chimney guy's rules). So, tomorrow night I will light the stove with a 17' chimney from the top of the flue collar and with a new gasket. After a couple fires, I will report on the issue. Thanks for everyone's patience and for all the suggestions. Most of all, thank you to BK for working with me on the issue. You guys are awesome!
At the beginning of the burning season this year, I noticed I still had the smoke smell issue. However, the smoke was now coming from the right hand side instead of the left. We had altered it!
So, back at it. BKVP and I have been speaking and we have agreed that the next course of action is to extend the chimney. Today, my chimney guy came out. He completely cleaned out and inspected the stove; looked over all the welds; inspected every part of the stove; gave me four more feet and decided that the work I did in April was unsatisfactory. He removed the gasket and completely redid it with a gasket of his choosing. He believes that somehow gases/smoke were actually exiting the stove BEHIND the gasket because, as he removed it carefully, he inspected the back of it and noticed discoloration (brown, not black so it was not from the cement). He also indicated that since the smoke was on the outside of the gasket in these areas he wasn't certain that the smoke wasn't actually seeping through the gasket. My main question for an engineer: WHY IS SMOKE LEAKING OUT INSTEAD OF AIR LEAKING IN?
Anyway. I have to wait for the cement to cure for 24 hours (chimney guy's rules). So, tomorrow night I will light the stove with a 17' chimney from the top of the flue collar and with a new gasket. After a couple fires, I will report on the issue. Thanks for everyone's patience and for all the suggestions. Most of all, thank you to BK for working with me on the issue. You guys are awesome!
Ashful
Minister of Fire
I'll take a stab at the "why" question, and say generically that there must be positive (or at least neutral) pressure in the stove at some points in time, for smoke to leak out. Is it possible you are experiencing back-puffing to such a small degree that you don't see and hear it, but it's still pushing smoke into the house? Only time I've ever had smoke in the house was from a back-puff, and we all know cat stoves dialed way back low on a short chimney will tend to back-puff.
alforit
Feeling the Heat
The smoke smell is happening due to an inadequate draft......A good gasket helps a lot but cannot overcome an improper draft..,....The BK's are prone to it due to the low burn ability and need to have a minimum draft potential to run properly.......Did you extend your chimney ? Or is 17 feet the height it originally was ?
Any elbows ? If so , how many ?
blueguy
Feeling the Heat
Yup, when I get home from work today I am firing it up and we will see. I had 13' from the top of the flue collar previously, all double wall with two 45s. Now, I still have everything but I added 4' to the top. It's 17' total now. It's towering off the top of my little house. If it works, I won't care. I need my wood heat!
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
This has not been my experience with the BK cat stove. No backpuff, sure sudden flamage but nothing that caused sound, vibration, or smoke in the house.
Yikes, 13' minus the 3 feet for each bend (or whatever they say) means you never had enough chimney. My princess specified 12' and now BK requires 15' but I believe the 30 boxes always required 15' EVL. Which means that with your bends you are still a bit short.
Anxious to see how it goes. With that towering chimney did you need to install braces? Supposed to be installed at five feet above the roofline.
The ~2-3 ft per elbow is for 90º bends. 45s on a vertical run have less effect. I am guessing maybe a foot or so based on our stove's performance. 17' of double-wall should perform well even with the offset. Hope this ends the smoke issue for you once and for all.
huauqui
Burning Hunk
Calentarse,
I have been following this thread since it started earlier this year and I am excited to see if this fixes it. I can't imagine how it must be for you waiting another 24 hours to see if everything is golden. Hoping the best for you and a smoke smell free house.
I have been following this thread since it started earlier this year and I am excited to see if this fixes it. I can't imagine how it must be for you waiting another 24 hours to see if everything is golden. Hoping the best for you and a smoke smell free house.
Ashful
Minister of Fire
Haha so sorry. It was along the top right hand corner, where I was most recently experiencing the origin of the odor. It was on the underside of the gasket which was evident when he pulled it out of the bracket that holds it.
I'm anxious to see how it goes, too. It's in the interior envelope and I'm hoping that'll be a saving grace, otherwise, this stove has got to go! I can't keep doing this.
I did have to have braces. Came in at $500 for all that work last night which put me over $1000 in modifications to make this thing work in my home. Really hoping this works cause I can't afford anything else for a long while...
alforit
Feeling the Heat
It definitely should improve It compared to what you had........I had a 13 foot chimney also when I first started burning. It worked fine with my lennox non cat stove but , HELL NO, for the BK, Heh. .......After much trial and error I ended up with 16 feet straight shot up , and feel that is just at the minimum to make these BK's work properly.
You may ultimately have to extend further due to the elbows , but I am sure you will see an improvement from what you have done so far.......You can always burn with the stat turned up a little higher to compensate for the lack of draft if needed...........I know its an investment extending the chimney , but these BK's need a stronger draft to work correctly and at their best............And in my opinion , Its worth it.
Alforit, I agree with you. The stove is definitely worth it; however, my house is only 1200 sq. ft. and I can't have the stove turned up at all. It'll overheat my house. I bought the stove because I needed low burn temps. It was notorious for that. So, I went online shopping using this site and the manual for the stove available on BKs website. The manual said that 12' above the flue collar was the minimum, and I deduced that'd it'd be fine with 13'. As we know, this ended up not being the case so I had to spend a lot of money to get this right.
Hello everyone. Reporting after my first fire with 17' of pipe and I can say that you guys know what you're talking about! I don't want to celebrate prematurely, but I had a long fire yesterday, through the night, and it was of course lit this morning. No matter the temperature, I COULD SMELL NOTHING. Not in the house or directly above where the usual suspected places were. Mind you, I have a brand new gasket and this has happened before with a new gasket. So only time will tell...
I'm also delighted to report that the stove has way less smoke spillage. Some spilled out when the chimney was cold (at first lighting it, and my wood was solid oak so take this with a grain of salt, it's very hard to season and may have been on the moist side). Later in the evening I wanted to hot reload after having the stove turned up all afternoon and evening. I opened it up and got very little smoke spillage.
Again, too early to get too excited. I'm going to be very disappointed if this hasn't worked but honestly will not be surprised if it didn't fix the issue. My gasket has been tightened and replaced before in the past and resulted in a couple non-malodorous burns only inevitably ended up being stinky once again. Here's to hoping!
I'm also delighted to report that the stove has way less smoke spillage. Some spilled out when the chimney was cold (at first lighting it, and my wood was solid oak so take this with a grain of salt, it's very hard to season and may have been on the moist side). Later in the evening I wanted to hot reload after having the stove turned up all afternoon and evening. I opened it up and got very little smoke spillage.
Again, too early to get too excited. I'm going to be very disappointed if this hasn't worked but honestly will not be surprised if it didn't fix the issue. My gasket has been tightened and replaced before in the past and resulted in a couple non-malodorous burns only inevitably ended up being stinky once again. Here's to hoping!
Squisher
Minister of Fire
Glad to see that your initial trial with the extended chimney was positive.
Good draft is a mysterious problem. Even if you have the proper height, there are a lot of other factors that will influence draft such as the peak on your house, neighbor's houses, trees, nearby hills/valleys, etc. We can't see how air is moving since it's invisible and it's pretty tough to set up smoke trails to watch what happens.
Apart from physical problems, you have to contend with weather, inside/outside pressure, etc. There's no doubt that the biggest problems faced by wood stoves is bad wood and bad draft.
I had back draft problems for years, even after extending my chimney to well over the needed length. When I bought my new stove and moved it 20' from the old location, the poor draft problems disappeared like magic and I actually ran into overdraft problems. That fix was much easier & cheaper by installing a separate damper in the pipe. I just got lucky, there is little else to explain the difference.
I think there should be a bold note on the BK review section that the stated chimney heights are optimistic and you may need to lengthen it considerably more for optimum performance. It simply makes sense that a low, slow burn will require better draft.
Good draft is a mysterious problem. Even if you have the proper height, there are a lot of other factors that will influence draft such as the peak on your house, neighbor's houses, trees, nearby hills/valleys, etc. We can't see how air is moving since it's invisible and it's pretty tough to set up smoke trails to watch what happens.
Apart from physical problems, you have to contend with weather, inside/outside pressure, etc. There's no doubt that the biggest problems faced by wood stoves is bad wood and bad draft.
I had back draft problems for years, even after extending my chimney to well over the needed length. When I bought my new stove and moved it 20' from the old location, the poor draft problems disappeared like magic and I actually ran into overdraft problems. That fix was much easier & cheaper by installing a separate damper in the pipe. I just got lucky, there is little else to explain the difference.
I think there should be a bold note on the BK review section that the stated chimney heights are optimistic and you may need to lengthen it considerably more for optimum performance. It simply makes sense that a low, slow burn will require better draft.
I agree that BK should warn people, and evidently now their manual is different, indicating that 15' is the minimum. That's just not what it said when I bought it, that's why I was so surprised to hear that I had to spend $1000 to get it right. And it has caused some problems at home now too since my wife HATES all the money I've spent on the thing. She also hates the soaring pipe with the brackets on it too. But I'm not alone in the WAF war now am I. Us guys have to fight for what we want!
Squisher
Minister of Fire
Well you liv
Well you live in British Columbia so I'm assuming that has an effect on opinions. I think if I had to deal with even half the cold you do my wife and I would feel similarly!
Hopefully she will feel better when your heating bills go down. I have spent a TON in the last year with a new stove, new chimney, new wood sheds, etc. It does hurt but when it's spread over the life of the stove, it is super cheap. Our old stove lasted 30 years and I sold it for just under the $$ I paid for it 30 yrs earlier. Soooo .. .tell your wife that a wood stove is a long term relationship, just like a marriage. Then buy her some good wine and sit in front of the fire and enjoy. 
alforit
Feeling the Heat
a
Yup, In order to get that low burn that you want you will need the optimal draft . If you don't have the proper draft you will get a smelly and overly dirty burn .....And most likely will fall out of the active zone with your cat and snuff out the burn.
Once you get your draft RIGHT , then most things will fall in line. Then you can start to learn the ART of starting the load and figuring out how and when to close the bypass and set the stat..(Under variable and changing conditions). Because that is key in setting the tone for how hot and quick that fire will burn.
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