Good evening all. I need a little help debugging an issue I'm having with my system. Here is some background:
I have a VC Resolute 0043 with a Selkirk DSP collar/damper, leading to a 6' run of DSP with an elbow in the middle, leading to a Selkirk insulated thimble, leading to a heavy gauge stainless liner (about 25' up from the thimble). The system (besides the 20+ year old stove) is less than 2 years old. I'm burning seasoned ash this season 18+ hours a day. It has been working great to date.
Tonight the air inlet flap on the back got stuck up/open with good bed of coals and a half magazine of wood (in updraft mode). I got the cooking DSP smell from the other room and quickly ran over. I caught it before the stove over-fired, but the temp was quickly departing the burn zone. I slowed the fire by dislodging and flipping the air inlet down and rotated the collar/damper to choke out the firebox.
Within 5 minutes the stove cooled (big fan above it helped). Thereafter, I flipped the collar/damper back to parallel and opened the air inlet about 1/2 way. The DSP immediately began to belch out smoke with gusto from every joint, requiring me to drop the air inlet back down. I ended up spending the entire night running the stove with as little air as possible and covering the upper DSP joints with wet hand towels to mitigate the regular leaks of smoke.
So the question is... what did I do? It is around zero F tonight, so this beast should be drafting like Ricky Bobby. My wild guess is that by choking and damper-ing the stove rapidly, I forced the firebox to smoke wildly while drawing cool air down the chimney for combustion, which cooled smoke already in the liner, resulting in a partial creosote blockage. Should I be on Amazon tomorrow ordering a SootEater and extension kit? Thanks for the help.
I have a VC Resolute 0043 with a Selkirk DSP collar/damper, leading to a 6' run of DSP with an elbow in the middle, leading to a Selkirk insulated thimble, leading to a heavy gauge stainless liner (about 25' up from the thimble). The system (besides the 20+ year old stove) is less than 2 years old. I'm burning seasoned ash this season 18+ hours a day. It has been working great to date.
Tonight the air inlet flap on the back got stuck up/open with good bed of coals and a half magazine of wood (in updraft mode). I got the cooking DSP smell from the other room and quickly ran over. I caught it before the stove over-fired, but the temp was quickly departing the burn zone. I slowed the fire by dislodging and flipping the air inlet down and rotated the collar/damper to choke out the firebox.
Within 5 minutes the stove cooled (big fan above it helped). Thereafter, I flipped the collar/damper back to parallel and opened the air inlet about 1/2 way. The DSP immediately began to belch out smoke with gusto from every joint, requiring me to drop the air inlet back down. I ended up spending the entire night running the stove with as little air as possible and covering the upper DSP joints with wet hand towels to mitigate the regular leaks of smoke.
So the question is... what did I do? It is around zero F tonight, so this beast should be drafting like Ricky Bobby. My wild guess is that by choking and damper-ing the stove rapidly, I forced the firebox to smoke wildly while drawing cool air down the chimney for combustion, which cooled smoke already in the liner, resulting in a partial creosote blockage. Should I be on Amazon tomorrow ordering a SootEater and extension kit? Thanks for the help.
