cough! Smoke cough!

I tried to start a flash fire today in our Napoleon stove and had smoke billowing out everywhere. The wind is very high today 25-35mph and the temp outside is about 60 and the inside was 66. Just wanted to take the chill off real quick. Once it started smoking I had a hard time getting the smoke to draft out, in fact it never did, I brought in a big tub and pulled all the smoldering wood out. Did I have some sort of negative draft? What do I watch out for next time? cough, cough!

If i understand from a previous thread, there wasnt enough differential temps to get a good draft. If the inside of the flue is almost the same temp as the outside you wont get lift.

Here is a reference to that thread. http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/1329/

I miss smoking ....33 years of Camels , it has been a year so far and smoke free. Just maybe the tuffest thing I ever did.

Oh we are talking wood smoke.

Probably a negative draft. Very common if your stove is in the basement, exterior masonry chimney, etc.

I've had luck opening a window near to the stove (in my basement) for about 15 - 30 seconds, to reverse a draft (get it going up) just prior to starting a new fire. At that high of an outside temperature, it might be hard to get things going up, though. Unless you have a mighty good chimney. You might want to test with something that smells better than wood smoke to see if you've succeeded. Try some incense or a candle to see which way the (chimney) wind is blowing before lighting your kindling.

Smoke sucks when chimneys don't!

Does anyone know a good way to get rid of or neutralize that smoke smell? Occasionally I accidently let a puff out and even if I open a window immediately it seems to linger for a day or so.

Marcus, with proper draft you shoudnt have any smoke smell. I know that didnt answer you question, but i suspect a ozone generator would fix the smell.