Help with my Englander 30 downdraft issues

[fran35]

I have the 30, which I love(once it is warmed up). I have about 30 feet of Class A from the thimble up and live on the top a pretty sizeable hill with consistent winds. I ALWAYS have significant downdraft problems, I have to run a propane torch in the box for about 5 minutes to get the heat rising so that I don't fill the house with smoke, but that doesn't work most times. I am at a loss with how to start a fire without filling my house with smoke. Best case scenario, I get 5-10 seconds of smoke rolling in before the heat in the box starts the upward draft process. Worst case, I warm the box with my torch, the smoke inevitably fills the room and the detectors go off. Closing the door only exacerbates the problem as the box fills with smoke, kills the fire and kindling and the smokes comes out of the secondary intake and fills the room anyway.

Also, my secondaries rarely consume all the smoke, as they seem to fly out of the box. I see videos of other's secondaries being a slow roll through the tubes along the box ceiling and mine does not even go through the tubes half the time as it literally flies out of the box and up the flue. This is with the primary air shut down as well. Also, I notice air being sucked into the box through the ash pan port. I have re-seated the thing(I never use the ash pan).

Do I need a damper? I love this stove, but fear I have an extreme downdraft. In the winter, once I am burning 24/7, it won't be as bad because the stove will stay warm. However, this fiasco is something I have to solve before the fire alarms wake up the baby one more time.

Help me, please.

 

[pen]

Sounds like you have 2 problems here. Down draft when cold, excessive draft when hot.

For the down draft issue, how are you starting your fires? Are you using a top-down method or some other? Fire starters? Paper? Other?

Possibly a cap specifically made for windy areas may help your downdraft as well as your excessive draft issues.

A key damper may really make a difference for you w/ the excessive overdraft when warm. They only cost a few bucks. I use mine maybe 2x a year if that for my case. In the meantime, the only complaint is it's a PIA to clean around when doing the chimney.

When loaded right up, how long can you go between loads and still have good coals to load on? What kind of wood are you burning?

pen

 

[fran35]

Lately I have been burning Sassafras. It is probably around 13% and it really burns hot and quick and is good for this shoulder season. The heavier woods that I have are mostly cherry, oak and locust. They are all under 20%.

I prefer to start my fires with the top down method, but I have found that it produces way too much smoke that fills the house before the updraft starts. The way that I have found produces the least amount of smoke before the updraft starts is a fire starter. I let that get going for a few minutes before I add kindling on top of that, which I allow to go for a while and finally I add very small splits. However, by this time, the smoke is not coming into the room any more and is drafting properly.

As far as in between loads, it probably is a couple hours. If I load the box up to the fire brick line, it will peg out my temperature gauge, which is 850 even with the air all almost shut down.

While I have good amount of wind, I tend to think it is the fact that my class A chimney is so long that causes the overdraft. Would a key damper help with start ups for me?

Thanks
Frank

 

[pen]

Key damper won't help a bit on the start-up but may help with the stove taking off on you once going.

I'd try the damper. You should be able to go AT LEAST 10 hours w/ good coals in that stove if things are not overdrafting w/ that wood. Additionally, if the firestarter method works to keep from smoking the house up, the simplest solution would be to stick w/ that.

pen