True or False? No Smoke, No odor?

I can smell the wood burning if I'm down wind when there's no smoke, but it's pretty slight.

Odor is such a subjective word. There is odor without smoke but generally, with smoke the odor is more pungent.

False

False

Even on the ole smoke dragon. I can be burning hot and clean, and still have a scent of smoke/burnt wood.

When I'm burning clean there is still an odor from the exhaust... but it's almost sweet. No suggestion of smoke.

It's rare, but there you are.

Peter B.

I say yes, I have smelled smoke coming out of my stove even though there was no visible smoke coming from the chimney. It certainly isn't nearly as strong as I have smelt as I was starting a fire in our wood stove and had visible smoke coming out, in fact it would be very easy to miss it all together as I would just catch "wiffs" of a smokey smell. To me it has a different smell than the visible smoke and personally, I think it is a better smell. As I just mentioned, in my case and with my limited experience with this stove, it has been fleeting "wiffs" that I have noticed when the stove is in cat burn. Certainly nothing even close to the overwhelming smoke coming from an open fireplace or older smoke dragon of a wood stove, both of which I have been able to easily smell from a couple of hundred yards away. I believe one would have a very, very, very hard time smelling anything from my stove from a hundred yards away.

If you want to compare a well burning stove to something really pungent, try burning green Poplar.

ansehnlich1 said:

True or False? No Smoke, No odor?

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Sometimes. Maybe. Yes and no?

Funny you should ask.......just today I was headed to my truck in the driveway and smelled smoke and looked up at the chimney and there was nothing but wavy heat thingys coming out...no smoke

I can easily smell smoke from fires in the neighborhood without seeing any evidence - especially at night!

Our cat stove produces an odd exhaust smell when the cat is engaged. Guess you'd call it "burnt smoke". Do the non-cats do that as well? I'd imagine they do since they are burning the smoke as well.

I can smell my exhaust smoke with nothing visibly coming out of my flue. Only time you can see smoke out of my stack is at reload time for a little bit. When i'm up and burning at normal operating temps the smoke, or exhaust gases smell totally different than at lightup or reload. I've always said if it smells good coming out of your flue, you're not burning hot enough.

ansehnlich1 said:

Well, I haven't done a real life test, but I think I've smelled smoke even though I couldn't see any coming out my chimney.

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If it's that subtle, do folks think it's fair to say that smokeless burning reduces odor to a neighborly level?

Odor, like beauty, is in the eye or in this case the nose of the beholder. We wood burners generally like the smell of wood burning although we might like the smell of certain woods better than others. The nay sayers however might be quick to complain and quick to associate health conditions to what they smell.

Smoke is an obvoius pollution so less of it is better. Burning wet wood and or not hot enough can produce more smoke and a putrid smell. If you want to give your neighbors less to complain about, make sure your wood is dry, burn it hot, and choose wood that has a more pleasant odor.

BrowningBAR said:

ansehnlich1 said:

True or False? No Smoke, No odor?

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Sometimes. Maybe. Yes and no?

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+1 Yes on start up, usually no during the main cycle - but, once in a while I'll step outside and smell a 'weak' bit of wood smoke smell (which smells nice by the way!). Cheers!

Yesterday standing out in the cold with my daughter waiting for the bus the wind was coming from the NE which it hardly ever does and I could smell something like smoke. It did not smell like normal pine burning it was more of a hydrocarbon burning smell. I figured out it had to be coming from my chimney.

I am used to my neighbors smoke dragon with a constant stream of white pine smoke. When she reloads it is thick black smoke for 30 min which looks like she is burning tires.

we have a neighbor who's house is about 750' away from ours, and often, dead down wind... she says it smells wonderful when we burn cherry, so I guessing it *can* travel that far if conditions are right. I often smell it when walking the dogs in the am, but those are splits just drooped on the coals... after a bit, I vary rarely pick any odor up..

Definitely a difference odor between a smokeless burn and a smokey burn. I get a headache and just feel like crap when around a smokey burn for too long (out in the country overnight when people have their stoves smoldering); but the smokeless burn yet still a scent of wood burning it is not near as strong or heavy smell.

If the wind or air pressure are right I can catch a whiff of the smoke coming from my chimney even though I cannot see any visible smoke . . . as others have mentioned the odor of course is all in the eye . . . or nose of the beholder . . . I find that it is a different kind of smoke -- a "lighter" smell than what one gets from a smoldering woodstove . . . of course I could just have a biased nose . . . then again in 20 years with the fire service I've smelled a lot of smoke.

pgmr said:

Our cat stove produces an odd exhaust smell when the cat is engaged. Guess you'd call it "burnt smoke". Do the non-cats do that as well? I'd imagine they do since they are burning the smoke as well.

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I smell something like that with the Fireview. Sort of a light hot-metal smell. But not a smokey wood smell.