Lit the Avalon Olympic Friday night. Seemed to be drafting well. Until the flames suddenly went out and it started belching black smoke from every joint and pore. As you can imagine, there was a fair amount of yelling, screaming and running about for a while.
I eventually figured out that I had a negative pressure situation going on. Probably because I had put a draft-blocking sand snake along the bottom of the basement door and sealed up the decommissioned flue in the opposite wall the week before. I figured it out when I opened the basement door to try to clear some smoke and saw the fire spring back to life in the stove. I guess I'll have to modify my fire starting procedures in the future.
On the upstairs front, I learned that a small fan blowing cold air out of the back bedrooms into the main room does an AMAZING job of returning warm air INTO said bedrooms. This wasn't really a surprise, given the number of recent posts about air circulation, but its still neat when you try something for yourself and it actually works as advertised.
(First full winter of burning and still have a lot to learn.)
I eventually figured out that I had a negative pressure situation going on. Probably because I had put a draft-blocking sand snake along the bottom of the basement door and sealed up the decommissioned flue in the opposite wall the week before. I figured it out when I opened the basement door to try to clear some smoke and saw the fire spring back to life in the stove. I guess I'll have to modify my fire starting procedures in the future.
On the upstairs front, I learned that a small fan blowing cold air out of the back bedrooms into the main room does an AMAZING job of returning warm air INTO said bedrooms. This wasn't really a surprise, given the number of recent posts about air circulation, but its still neat when you try something for yourself and it actually works as advertised.
(First full winter of burning and still have a lot to learn.)
