trouble with wood insert smoking

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ldedeo

New Member
Oct 25, 2009
12
Northern,MA
Hi new to the forum and I have a question. I have a Vermont castings Montpelier wood insert. I have had it a year and it HAS been wonderful. However yesterday I tried to start it and smoke poured out of the insert. None of the smoke was leaving the insert like the damper was closed. I disconnected the pipe this morning and burned some paper under the pipe and it drafted fine. So it is in the stove. I slide the handle left and right and it sounds like the damper is opening and closing. How can I check this? There is a plate just above the air tubes and the parts diagram says it is the baffle. #16. This plate is just laying right on the tubes and I can move it around by hand. Is this right? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank God it is not cold today(by my standards) or the wife would really be (well you know)
Thank you very much.
Larry
 
Larry, Sometimes my stove needs a boost to get it going when it is not very cold outside. When it is damp and not too cold I sometimes put a couple of sheets of loosely crumpled paper on top of everything and crack the door a little for a few seconds to get it going good. Once it gets some good heat going it will draw fine, if this doesn't help then I would look elsewhere. Just my 2 cents, Jim
 
Thanks Jim, I always get the draft going with some crumpled paper, but this time non of the smoke would go out. Like ie was blocked.
Thanks
Larry
 
Welcome to the forum Larry.

Just to ask the obvious, have you checked the chimney this fall?
 
Yes chimney is fine. Cleaned at the beginning of the season. The draft is fine in the pipe when it is disconnected. Something to do with the stove, but Thanks.
Larry
 
Larry, I looked at the parts breakdown for your stove on the VC website.Item 16 the baffle should be where it is laying on top of the secondary tubes. It appears that the handle to change the airflow is connected directly to a plate that slides side to side, is this correct? It would seem that you should be able to see that this is moving with a flashlight through the front. The 3 primary air inlet holes appear to be located just inside the door on the bottom in the picture. Is it possible that these holes are obstructed with an accumulation of ash etc.., ? I can't really see that it could be someplace else other than one of these two places.
 
Make sure that baffle plate is positioned as far to the rear as it'll go.
You said you lit some paper directly into the pipe and it drafted well, but what was your method to start the original fire?
Perhaps you just had a negative draft at the time which a very small fire could not reverse quickly.

Gabe
 
Yes, the 3 primary air inlets are clear. I actually pull out the plate after a few burns and clean the holes. As far as looking in where the lever is connected, I cannot see inside. i suppose I have to pull the whole top off?
Thanks
Larry
 
really hot, I crumple up some newspaper and start that first, holding towards the baffle to start a draft, then continue lighting my fire. Never had this problem before, that is why I wasthinking something on the baffle broke. Cannot see the air plate or if it is moving open.
Thanks
Larry
 
Probably nothing wrong seeing you looked at the pipe, etc. Mine did that once and I figured out why. We have a bilevel. Stove in bottom floor. Heat had just come on upstairs. House turned into a stack. When I opened the door to light it, I could feel a strong draft of cold air coming down into the stove. Never had a problem before, so I just threw in a couple pieces of paper, lit the superceder then the paper, then closed the door. Well, it took quite a bit more paper to get that draft reversed. Room full of smoke, etc. Once I finally got the draft to reverse and stay going up, no problem. What I learned? If I feel a strong down draft like that again, I will do as others on here have and use a torch or hair dryer to be sure to get the flue going before lighting the fire.

Steve
 
Depending on the weather yes you could have had a down draft. I went to burn some junk mail in Sept. it was in the 60s and humid out. Would ya know all the smoke came in the House I couldn't even get it to burn! I usually do a top down fire to start draft and fire works well!
 
Larry, I have a basement install and if the weather is just right (or should I say wrong) I get the same thing. You would swear there is something blocking the chimney or the air intake. I sometimes need to burn several sheets of loosley crumpled news paper toward the top of the stove with the door cracked to get it going the right way, sometimes more than once. I usually do this with my kindling loaded on top of about 5 or 6 newspaper knots and pretty soon everything is going.
 
Try cracking a window open until the draft gets going. Sometimes I have the same problem and crack a window and the smoke reverses almost instantly. After the stove is warm close the window. As others have said this is usually only when the temp is not that cold and very humid.
 
Hi Larry,

When our insert smoked it was because the top of the smoke stack 's vents were plugged from the rain. It only happened on a short stack pipe - but we would always have this problem on start up if we had not used the insert for a while and it had rained. Go figure!
 
Typical shoulder season problem. My stove does the same on high humid drizzly days in the 40-50's. I crack a nearby window and start the stove with lots of small kindling and door cracked open.
 
Welcome Idedeo. I guess the one question I would ask is when the chimney was cleaned, is it possible some soot got knocked down into the top of the insert and is now blocking things up? I don't know what method you used to clean it.
 
Thanks Guys. Actualy it was about 40 out and humid. Wife wanted the edge taken off. I told her grab a blanket, that did not go over well. Tried again today and started fine. Put more paper and kindling on top this time. As far as cleaning, I clean from the top down, then disconnect the pipe and vacum. I have a 1 piece custom made surround (opening to the fireplace was too huge for any VC surrounds.) The 1 piece is nice because I can pop it off in 2 seconds. Everyone thanks for all the input, awesome forum!!!!
Larry
 
Idedeo...I don't think your problems are over yet.

In your first post you didn't seem to know too much about the baffle. If you cleaned from the top down, into the stove without removing the baffle first, all of the junk from the chimney is sitting on top of the baffle. This will reduce the air flow substantially. You need to remove one of the tubes and pull the baffle out. Clean it off and put everything back in place.
 
Hi Larry- Im somwhere near you in Massachusetts. I had the exact same issue last weekend. Looks like it was the warm weather we had.
Started the stove last night without issue.
 
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