Looking for some help and suggestions.
So, have been burning wood pretty consistently for 2-2.5 weeks and have noticed a problem: i am getting a lot of smoke in my basement. Let me explain:
House: 2 story log home with full basement. Woodstove on 1st floor, piped into chimney (clay tile lined chimney only). Chimney has 2 flues... one for the woodstove and the second for the fuel oil burner in the basement. Fuel oil burner does baseboard heating (seldom used) and hot water.
Stove, btw, is an old Merlin 3 (new zealand stove made in 1990's, one of first EPA approved stoves, still on list).
So, i have noticed an intermittent haze/smoky smell in basement. It waxes and wanes. I have been burning pretty much 24/7.
Today, there was a much thicker "haze" in the basement than before.... i attributed to wind conditions, etc. Came home from work and CO detector on first floor was beeping at "32". Aired out house, all is well. Basement isn't smoky this evening but have also stopped fire.
I ran into this problem a little bit last year but wasn't sure if it was odor from woodstove or boiler (since i was running boiler more last year). This year, boiler has been seldom on.
The smoke is comng out of the bypass port on the boiler outflow pipe (running from boiler into chimney) The boiler tech who came out to service boiler says I can't cover this port. I figure i have 1 of a few options for this haze/smoke:
1) Somehow the stove smoke is being drawn down boiler flue... possibly due to tight house and draw of air to stove is creating negative pressure in basement
2) Smoke from stove is blocking the flue action of the boiler flue and the fumes are from the boiler (which cycles on a few times a day for hot water).
I had a sweep out to the house to do the chimney a month or so back. I called him up and he thinks the first option is most likely. He'd like to put a 3' flue cap extender on one of the flues to fix the problem ($250 installed). Here are my questions:
1) Is this the right fix? Is there anything else I should be looking at?
2) If the flue extender is the right fix, which flue should i "extend": the woodstove or boiler flue?
Thanks in advance and hope this makes sense.
So, have been burning wood pretty consistently for 2-2.5 weeks and have noticed a problem: i am getting a lot of smoke in my basement. Let me explain:
House: 2 story log home with full basement. Woodstove on 1st floor, piped into chimney (clay tile lined chimney only). Chimney has 2 flues... one for the woodstove and the second for the fuel oil burner in the basement. Fuel oil burner does baseboard heating (seldom used) and hot water.
Stove, btw, is an old Merlin 3 (new zealand stove made in 1990's, one of first EPA approved stoves, still on list).
So, i have noticed an intermittent haze/smoky smell in basement. It waxes and wanes. I have been burning pretty much 24/7.
Today, there was a much thicker "haze" in the basement than before.... i attributed to wind conditions, etc. Came home from work and CO detector on first floor was beeping at "32". Aired out house, all is well. Basement isn't smoky this evening but have also stopped fire.
I ran into this problem a little bit last year but wasn't sure if it was odor from woodstove or boiler (since i was running boiler more last year). This year, boiler has been seldom on.
The smoke is comng out of the bypass port on the boiler outflow pipe (running from boiler into chimney) The boiler tech who came out to service boiler says I can't cover this port. I figure i have 1 of a few options for this haze/smoke:
1) Somehow the stove smoke is being drawn down boiler flue... possibly due to tight house and draw of air to stove is creating negative pressure in basement
2) Smoke from stove is blocking the flue action of the boiler flue and the fumes are from the boiler (which cycles on a few times a day for hot water).
I had a sweep out to the house to do the chimney a month or so back. I called him up and he thinks the first option is most likely. He'd like to put a 3' flue cap extender on one of the flues to fix the problem ($250 installed). Here are my questions:
1) Is this the right fix? Is there anything else I should be looking at?
2) If the flue extender is the right fix, which flue should i "extend": the woodstove or boiler flue?
Thanks in advance and hope this makes sense.