Smoke ?

[Leslielou]

Hello all - since installing our stove this past fall, we have had a wonderful, warm, and smooth winter...until today.

My husband let the stove burn out last night to clean out the ashes. Tonight when he went to light a fire, smoke started coming out of the chimney pipe past the 90 - The small segment before the pipe exits the house. It was very bad, set off alarms as it was really seeping quite bad, and we shut the fire down. It was dark outside so cant do much insoection until tomorrow. there was smoke coming out of the top of our chimney like normal.

This has not happened before. Is it just a matter of cleaning the flue or is there something else going on?

Thank you!

 

[Pallet Pete]

Sounds like your cap may be plugged and or you had a chimney fire. Give it a good cleaning and look outside for small black pop corny ash ( indicates a chimney fire ). If there is popcorn ash have a proper inspection done. It could also be a loose pipe joint but its better to be safe.

Pete

 

[Nick Mystic]

If you were using some high moisture content kindling and it didn't get enough oxygen to get burning good, just smoldering, and you closed your stove door it's possible that the smoke created would not have enough draft to go up the flue. If it stayed in the stove and the lower part of the flue it could easily seep out of a loose seam in your pipe. During normal burning you wouldn't notice smoke coming out that same loose seam due to a good draft in the flue.

 

[Wood Duck]

Maybe the flue pipe was moved during the ash removal. If the joint is loose perhaps it can be simply pushed back together, or somebody else can recommend a sealant or cemet to use to make the joint tighter.

I would certainly check the flue to see if it is clogged, but the fact that you removed ashes right before this happened seems like more than just coincidence.

As Nick Mystic mentioned loose joints in the flue can leak smoke when the flue is cool even though they do not leak when the flue is hot and the draft is stronger. The joint between my stove and the flue does this sometimes.