Smoke problem, pellets, or stove ?

[Mury]

We have been running the Lopi Leyden Pellet stove for 2 season now. It is our primary source of heat. This winter, the stove filled the house with smoke at least 5 or 6 times. Had the technician come twice. He finally disconnected the outside air kit and the problem stopped. It seems the air kit was pulling in smoke from the exhaust vent (vents straight out of the house, and the neighbor's house is 15-20 feet away causing some sort of air flow problem). My question is this: We've been burning LGG softwood pellets. Is the higher moisture content in the softwood causing excess smoke? Also we are noticing excessive creosote buildup behind the brick insert. Any thoughts would be helpful.

1. Softwoods and excess smoke? Would hardwoods be better?
2. Anyone else had this weird problem? Our house is 100+ years old and gets plenty of outside air on its own.

 

[imacman]

Your smoke in the house problem just illustrates why straight out exhaust systems aren't the greatest....the air intake & exhaust are too close together, as you found out.

As long as the pellets are dry, the type shouldn't matter at all. Sounds to me like you need to open the air control some......creosote only forms from low burn temps in pellet stoves. What do you normally have it set on? Do the pellets "dance" around a little in the bottom of the burn pot during normal burning?

Could be a dirty stove too. How often do you do a "full" cleaning (everything including removing & cleaning the blowers, behind the ash traps, etc, etc)?

Since you have a straight out exhaust, it would be very easy to use a leaf blower on the stove after all the other cleaning was done too.

 

[Mury]

Thanks for the help. We've been doing regular cleanings more regularly. We plan on venting the stove straight up to avoid additional smoke problems. The creosote issue confuses me. Our air control is open about 1/4 of the opening (we have a pull lever). After a cleaning the pellets do dance around in the bottom of the burn pot. When using a higher heat setting, should we open the air control more? In the past we have rarely touched the air control, no matter if we're burning on high or low. During most of the winter our stove burns on high.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

The reason for that creosote build up is lack of air to properly burn the pellets.

Once set for a particular brand and batch of fuel your damper shouldn't need to be changed as long as you keep up with cleaning the stove.

I have no idea how you clean your stove, however most folks miss a number of places. Everything that is marked annual or seasonal should be done for every ton to ton and a half put through the stove, the higher ash pellets require it to be done sooner. imacman gave good advice about doing a full cleaning.

If you had smoke enter your house because of outside air then the OAK wasn't installed properly or the stove itself is defeating the OAK. OAKs must have a gas tight seal where they connect to the stove and the air path from that connection to the burn pot area must be enclosed and gas tight. There are a number of stoves that require a custom piece from the manufacturer to properly install an OAK, there are stoves that just have the outside air piping end inside the shell and close to the "normal" air intake area. Then there are stoves that have slots in the input air piping and are otherwise sealed properly those stove require that the outside air piping extend past the slots before being clamped and sealed. In short it can be catch as catch can on an OAK getting installed properly. Basement installs with OAKs have other considerations as well.

The moisture content differences between premium pellets is relatively small, while this might cause an issue it is not going to be an issue if the stove isn't being burned at low fire or if it is being burned at low fire getting a proper amount of air.