What the heck?????

OK, here's the situation. I come in from outside splitting wood to check on my FPX 36 elite. Rip roaring fire going on using very dry (15-18%MC) pine. I notice the fire may be going too good and there is a slight smoke or hot burnt smell to the air near my fireplace. I go outside to look at the chimney and alot of dark smoke is coming out and my CAT is engaged. I figure four things can be the cause of this.....

One, the seal on my door is a little ragged and it may be getting too much air or something
two, my CAT may be slightly clogged with ash and not handling all the smoke
three, I may have had a chimney fire.
Four, I overfired the fireplace/

I don't suspect a chimney fire (although I have never had one) my wood is dry and I just cleaned the chimney. I turned the air all the way down and it seemed to settled down but there appears to be alot of dark smoke swirling around in the firebox. smoke still coming out of the chimney with the CAT engaged. what do you guys think...am I missing something, did i do something wrong?

BrotherBart said:

Did there happen to be a big old dry pine knot in that load? Those things burn like gasoline and the resin bubbles out of them and give off oily black smoke.

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It's a strong possibility. I didn't pay particluar notice, but the pine I am using is the irregular twisted pieces that I have set aside on my wood stacks. Would my CAT not handle the smoke and resin from it? Should I not burn that stuff?

Backwoods Savage said:

Are you perhaps turning the draft down too far? Too much smoke for the cat to handle? I don't know about your stove but on ours we do not close the draft all the way.

Check the seal on that door (the dollar bill test) and if it is too ragged, change it. It is a quick and easy change that does not cost much nor take much time to do. If it is ragged as you state then perhaps it will look awfully black or brown where a leak is. Good luck.

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I did adjust the gasket this morning while cleaning the glass. There was alot of soot on the glass right at those areas and it wiped off easily. The air was wide open and the fireplace was very hot, so I'm not sure if extra air was getting in at those gasket areas in addition to the open air and the dry pine. I did the dollar bill test and the dollar bill pulled out after some tugging. I readjusted the gasket and vacuumed out the CAT and seems to be working good now. However, I'm just wondering why it got so hot and why all the black smoke. It got alittle hairy there for a moment. Just trying to figure out if it was one specific thing or a combination of the things I listed that made the stove act like that.

Ok I found part of the problem based off your suggestions. The blower was turned all the way down and so I think the heat was not being dissapated as much as usual (according to the manual).I was burning some large fires and it was burning hotter than I am used too. probably relates to the smell as suggested earlier. Second part probably was the resiny pine I was burning in conjunction with a dirty CAT that I cleaned out. The pine creates a light fluffy ash that tends to clog the CAT more often it seems. All seems to be working well now. Thanks for the help guys.