Evidence Of Air Polution In Our House

[rennman]

I'm the guy who posted a few months ago regarding my "Comforter" which had often burned out of control. Closing the air intake completely would cause "whuffing" (A VERY FRIGHTENING PHENOMENON!). The thoughts and replys on Hearth were calming and helpful. The advice was to forget about long overnight burns and settle for short burns of moderate temperature using two or no more than three pieces of wood. We ran it that way since November. Now something else has happened that is most troubling. The walls and windows throughout the house are covered with soot. The metal element of our Ionic Breeze air cleaner is soot covered every day. We must have been breathing this stuff for quite awhile now. The stove has not been "whuffing", but I am aware that one must open the door very slowly to add wood or else smoke will back into the house enough that people far from the stove will smell it. This stove has a seven inch outlet which has been squeezed to an oval. I conected it with a reducer to a six inch tee with cleanout then to 16 feet of stainless steel flue liner which is insulated and goes up thru the 12 x 12 clay flue. Does anyone have any idea where all this soot could be coming from?

 

[pen]

you sure someone didn't wait for the stove to go stone cold to remove the ashes? A cold stove w/ stirred ashes spells all of them coming into and setting into the house and none up the flue.

Have you double checked the stove to be sure a weld didn't pop?

pen

 

[tfdchief]

Do you have a Carbon Monoxide detector and smoke detector? One or both should have been going off long before now. Has anyone living in the house had head aches and or flue like symptoms? Man you are scaring me!

 

[rennman]

I do have smoke and CO detectors that I know are working fine; neither ever indicated a problem. The comment about checking for a bad weld got my attention. Of course this stove is a Comforter and is totally assembled from cast iron bottom, top and walls. The walls and top sit into cast grooves in top and base pedestal and then every joint is sealed with furnace cement. Matter of fact I re-caulked the left front vertical last year. The stove's fire box does not appear to have leaks, but then a fellow at the local stove shop (who I asked for advice when the stove seemed to over fire) said that it sounded to him as though the stove was no longer air tight. I cleaned the chimney over a week ago (got out about 4 pounds of creosote chips) and I did see a slight crescent opening in the joint of the 6 x 7 reducer stove pipe. I did not think at the time that that was a problem. The length of the tiny opening in the stove pipe joint is about 3 inches (widest in the middle, about an eighth inch). Is that something that has to be plugged with furnace cement? Also, could there always have been insufficient up-draft? I had come to believe there was too much draft, but smoke always comes out of the firebox when you open the door to add wood. If you open it very slowly you can counter this. A guy at Field Controls said I definitely need a draft inducer, but that would mean electricity use. The flue liner is 16 feet straight up as it is now. What more can be done to increase the draft. How about changing the 6 inch flue liner to a 7 or an 8 inch. Of course larger would have to be without insulation; I had a bit of difficulty putting the insulation-wrapped 6 incher down the 12 x 12 clay flue. I hope you guys can help me with this as my wife, daughter and son-in-law have demanded a moratorium on stove use until the problem is eliminated. Can't say as I blame them.

 

[Shari]

I do have smoke and CO detectors that I know are working fine; neither ever indicated a problem. The comment about checking for a bad weld got my attention. Of course this stove is a Comforter and is totally assembled from cast iron bottom, top and walls. The walls and top sit into cast grooves in top and base pedestal and then every joint is sealed with furnace cement. Matter of fact I re-caulked the left front vertical last year. The stove's fire box does not appear to have leaks, but then a fellow at the local stove shop (who I asked for advice when the stove seemed to over fire) said that it sounded to him as though the stove was no longer air tight. I cleaned the chimney over a week ago (got out about 4 pounds of creosote chips) and I did see a slight crescent opening in the joint of the 6 x 7 reducer stove pipe. I did not think at the time that that was a problem. The length of the tiny opening in the stove pipe joint is about 3 inches (widest in the middle, about an eighth inch). Is that something that has to be plugged with furnace cement? Also, could there always have been insufficient up-draft? I had come to believe there was too much draft, but smoke always comes out of the firebox when you open the door to add wood. If you open it very slowly you can counter this. A guy at Field Controls said I definitely need a draft inducer, but that would mean electricity use. The flue liner is 16 feet straight up as it is now. What more can be done to increase the draft. How about changing the 6 inch flue liner to a 7 or an 8 inch. Of course larger would have to be without insulation; I had a bit of difficulty putting the insulation-wrapped 6 incher down the 12 x 12 clay flue. I hope you guys can help me with this as my wife, daughter and son-in-law have demanded a moratorium on stove use until the problem is eliminated. Can't say as I blame them.

Whoa! Prior to this chimney cleaning, when was your chimney cleaned last? That's way to much creosote! What kind of wood are you burning there! Has it been cut, stacked and seasoned for 12 months or more???

 

[tfdchief]

know (CO detectors) are working fine

How do you know? If you have soot in the house, you have CO. I would call the Fire Dept and ask them to check with their gas meters. Of course it would have to be during when you are burning to determine anything. Bottom line is, there has to be CO in the house if there is soot. The only question is how much.

slight crescent opening in the joint of the 6 x 7 reducer stove pipe. I did not think at the time that that was a problem. The length of the tiny opening in the stove pipe joint is about 3 inches (widest in the middle, about an eighth inch). Is that something that has to be plugged with furnace cement?

Small openings should draw air in, not leak out, unless you DO have insuffient draft. Either way, they probably should be sealed as they could introduce cold air into the chimney and increase creostoe production and lesson the draft further.

Also, could there always have been insufficient up-draft?

Sounds like it to me. Increasing the size of the flue may help but not isulating it may be an even trade off, not doing you any good. What size is the exhaust outlet on the stove?

 

[RNLA]

Most commonly a stove that is made with an 8" exhaust should use 8" all the way up. The only reason the flue diameter should be reduced is because of a restriction of the chimney. This would include smoke shelf, off set of the actual chimney tile versus the firebox or in the case of a two story house with an upstairs/downstairs fireplace they have a S curve in the chimney sometimes. So if you can fit an 8" liner all the way up then it would help. Keep in mind that if you go with a bigger liner you may need to go a little bit taller to get the same draft as a 6". There is math to figure out how much but I do not know the formula. Some times a stove installer may install a 6" liner to "Improve draft" but it comes at a cost. If the stove was designed to flow a certain amount of air for combustion then every effort should be taken to keep that level of operation. As an example the last stove I had was a "Country 310" it had an 8" exhaust and we had a maximum size of 7" inside the tile. We installed a full 7" flex liner, this was extremely tight, we tucked in about 16"-20" of insulation around the top of the pipe, down the chimney, and that was the best it could be. The operation was a bit difficult at first and that was with only a 1" reduction of the exhaust. The fact remains that the flow of air through the firebox is determined by the air intake as well as the exhaust. You need to come as close to the air flow requirements or capabilities of the unit as you can then you may be amazed at the different stove you have that you never changed! :-/ The stove will still try to take in air to combust but not have enough exhaust to get rid of the combustion byproduct or exhaust...

 

[DanCorcoran]

"If you have soot in the house, you have CO."

I don't agree. We had soot in our house constantly when we had a pellet stove. It came from cleaning the darn thing daily, using a brush to get the soot off of the glass, the combustor basket, the inside walls of the stove. It was a mess and we ended up buying a different brand, which helped immensely. But we didn't have CO...the new detector was sitting right next to the stove.

 

[tfdchief]

"If you have soot in the house, you have CO."

I don't agree. We had soot in our house constantly when we had a pellet stove. It came from cleaning the darn thing daily, using a brush to get the soot off of the glass, the combustor basket, the inside walls of the stove. It was a mess and we ended up buying a different brand, which helped immensely. But we didn't have CO...the new detector was sitting right next to the stove.

Dan, Sorry, I didn't think of that.....my only thought regarding source of the soot was what I have seen so many times in my job, soot deposited from combustion gas from a fossil fuel burning appliance (even candles) and there was always CO!. And from what I could gather from the OP's post, that was the case.

 

[rennman]

Thanks Dan and Chief,
I checked all the seams where the six cast iron plates join up. Indeed there were quite a few places where the furnace cement was absent or cracked and loose. I re-cailked all the seams with 2000 degree cement. I'll check it tomorrow. But here's something that is driving me nuts. In 2008 we raised the masonry chimney about 5 or 6 feet. Previous owner of the house used the open fireplace and he tried to overcome the poor draft with one of those variable speed electric fans. Now I've got 16 feet of 6 inch seamless, corrugated, stainless steel flue liner and yet when I let a paper napkin smolder in the fire box tonight the smoke almost came out the open door rather than be drawn up the chimney. What the heck is wrong and what can I do to improve the draft without resorting to an electrically powered draft inducer? I do know from experience that additional pipe above the masonry will choke rapidly with creosote from being surrounded by cold. Have you guys got any answers?

 

[Install fire 1]

Add a 2 or 3 foot chimney extension to the top of the chimney. (use insulated pipe to avoid creosote)

This in a lot of cases will be strong enough to eliminate any down drafting issues unless the chimney is way to short.

I have found in many cases that a masonry chimney can be as short as 2 to 3 feet.

Whats within 10 feet of the chimney?

Does the chimney pass the 10 feet over to the roof and up 2 feet higher then that?

Trees and other obstructions can mess with it as well.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Before you put the smouldering napkin in the firebox, use a torch of some kind (wood, paper, gas) to get the flue heated, so that there is a draft. Just putting a smouldering napkin in a cold stove won't produce a draft.

 

[Install fire 1]

Finding the perfect balance is much nicer then having to "pre heat" the flue and hope it works and doesn't fill your house with smoke.

Aim higher, and you will be surprised.

 

[crossout]

I'm the guy who posted a few months ago regarding my "Comforter" which had often burned out of control. Closing the air intake completely would cause "whuffing" (A VERY FRIGHTENING PHENOMENON!). The thoughts and replys on Hearth were calming and helpful. The advice was to forget about long overnight burns and settle for short burns of moderate temperature using two or no more than three pieces of wood. We ran it that way since November. Now something else has happened that is most troubling. The walls and windows throughout the house are covered with soot. The metal element of our Ionic Breeze air cleaner is soot covered every day. We must have been breathing this stuff for quite awhile now. The stove has not been "whuffing", but I am aware that one must open the door very slowly to add wood or else smoke will back into the house enough that people far from the stove will smell it. This stove has a seven inch outlet which has been squeezed to an oval. I conected it with a reducer to a six inch tee with cleanout then to 16 feet of stainless steel flue liner which is insulated and goes up thru the 12 x 12 clay flue. Does anyone have any idea where all this soot could be coming from?

do you have fuel oil furnace????..... fuel oil furnace can cause black soot all over the place because i know this when i 1st rented this house and in the 1st 3 days when moved in but not fully moved in on that 3rd day i end up finding the furnace filter full of soot and come to find out the heat exchanger is shot land lord end up buying a brand new furnace and had ins to cover the cost of cleaning the whole house top to bottom plus painting and duct work cleanings

 

[maverick06]

maybe a sidebar, but go read some reviews for the ionic breeze. I have a hepa filter (with lifetime filter). Might mitigate the problem (whatever the cause). And you wont generate ozone in your house.

 

[sesmith]

Does the draft improve if you open a nearby window? (try also doing this check with your other house vents/furnace/water heater-if gas) working as all these things can contribute to a negative pressure in the house). If so, maybe an outside air intake would help.

To check for leaky stove gaskets and seams, I usually get a good hot fire going, then close the drafts. I then go over all the possible leak points with the flame on a butane grill lighter. Any leaks are obvious where the flame gets sucked in.

 

[rennman]

Hey guys... we seem to be rambling a bit. Let's re-cap. When my Comforter stove had just a 7 inch pipe going thru a metal plate into the fireplace smoke-chamber the burn was normal and controlable. Problem was that with that setup liquid creosote was dripping down the walls of the fireplace (smoke suddenly hitting the cold air in the bottom of the masonry chimney). It seems that all my problems began after I installed the 6 inch stainless steel flue liner (7 inch pipe squeezed to oval goes tightly into cast iron opening at bach of stove; I used a 7 to 6 inch reducer). The other thing as I said before was that 2 nights ago I repaired all high-temp cement joints (have not had the courage to light it up yet, because my wife is afraid to face another housefull of soot). The stove is currently sitting there tight and clean. Even though the chimney was made taller in 2008 I was thinking that maybe I should consider putting back the draft assist fan that came with the house. It is one of those $1300 units that is set up to sit right on top of the 12 x 12 clay flue. The variable speed control is still on wall right by the stove. Would running this machine guarantee that soot will never again back into the house???