Enviro Meridian smokey smell out of heat exchanger?

[Andy Bro]

I have an Enviro Meridian insert (no oak), got it at the start of last winter. The machine has worked flawlessly up to now. The flame was getting lazy on Thursday, so I did cleaned it and the chimney pipe (I couldn't believe the amount of ash that came out of it), but I didn't know about cleaning behind the firebrick. Well, yesterday morning, it was lazy again. I did some research and realized I'm an idiot, so I took the firebrick out and cleaned all the ash out. I didn't pull out the ash pan because I just cleaned it out a few days before.

Flame is short and fast now, burns well. It was on 3 all day yesterday without a problem. The thermostat turned down last night and the stove went to idle and I went to bed. Woke up early this morning to a smokey smell (no haze, just light smell). It smells like it's coming out of the heat exchanger pipes, but those should be completely sealed from the combustion chamber, right?

From what I've read, smoke in the house is from a bad seal/gasket, but is accompanied by a lazy flame.

What do you guys think? The smell isn't strong enough to trigger the fire/CO alarm, but it's not comforting.

 

[Andy Bro]

I did adjust the damper yesterday. If the damper is open too far, the pressure inside the stove will probably be higher than it was before, but should still be lower than ambient in the house.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[boo boo]

Check your exhaust for leaks. Best in a dark room at start upsusing a flashlight around the exhaust it may be getting sucked into the destitution fan from there

 

[boo boo]

Ok just saw the insert part so that may be tough

 

[Don2222]

Flame is short and fast now, burns well. It was on 3 all day yesterday without a problem. The thermostat turned down last night and the stove went to idle and I went to bed. Woke up early this morning to a smokey smell (no haze, just light smell). It smells like it's coming out of the heat exchanger pipes, but those should be completely sealed from the combustion chamber, right?

Hello
If there is any smoke leaking out of the exhaust flange on the back of the stove, then the convection blower will pick it right up and send it out the heat tubes in the front of the stove.

I saw a setup where the stove pipe was alot larger than the stove flange. It was such a loose fit the house was filling with smoke!

So make sure the exhaust is sealed and the stove flange was properly sealed to the exhaust blower housing. I also worked on an Archgaurd Optima PS-1, the exhaust flange was flat against the exhaust housing and leaked smoke like a siv! I had to put in a special custom gasket to fix it!