Stop that smoky smell....

[Hankjones]

Well... it's time for me to shutdown the insert. It's just getting too warm to burn anymore. It's been fun, but now I have to think about the hot summers and air conditioning... I seem to have a problem with a light smoky smell coming through my insert when it gets warm outside. I figure it's due to a draft coming from my chimney into the house and wondered if anyone thinks it's a good idea to try to cover the liner at the top. I figured this would stop any air from coming down the chimney and probably stop bugs, spiders, whatever from trying to roost there. Sooo...

1) Do you think this would help reduce the smell?
2) Do you think this would make it worse? Like the liner needs some sort of ventlation?
2) Any reason this would be a bad idea? (besides trying to light up a fire while it's sealed?)

I have a outside brick chimney with an insulated ss liner about 20 or so feet.

 

[begreen]

It won't hurt to try it. Put a sign in the stove warning that the flue is capped to remind you in the fall.

 

[lukem]

I had/have the same issue with my stove. Last year I pulled the rain cap, put a plastic trash bag over the pipe, and reinstalled the cap. Trim the plastic flush with the pipe and it's not even noticeable. Stopped the smell.

I'm going to do it again this year, but will probably be burning again later in the week. Gotta love the shoulder season (73 Wed afternoon...then 35 Wed night)....

 

[Backwoods Savage]

You might want to wait about 2 more weeks on this. Looking at the forecast, winter may make a comeback.

 

[firefighterjake]

I rarely get any smell in my woodstove in the Summer . . . but I clean the chimney, stove pipe and woodstove pretty thoroughly . . . put in a box of baking soda . . . and on those occasional days when I do get a smell I light a candle inside the woodstove . . . which is a bonus . . . since it almost reminds me of winter . . . only on a much, much smaller scale as the candle doesn't quite match the view of those secondaries.

 

[grommal]

I plug my flue in the off-season to eliminate the smell. Since the smell comes mostly from the interior of the chimney, I plug it at the bottom rather than the top. The chimney configuration allows me to reach into the cleanout door and insert a plug into the stovepipe inside the thimble. I made a plug out of 6" thick foam rubber from an old furniture cushion.

 

[woodgeek]

I had a wicked smell problem in the summer. A paper plate with a box of baking soda spread on it, in the stove, solved the problem.

 

[pen]

I'm w/ ffjake and geek, I've had good luck with the baking soda in the stove. I never thought about the candle trick! (duh) but will try that in the right case.

If you choose to plug the chimney pipe w/ anything, I suggest you leave a note on the stove. Not to sound morbid but if something happened to you, you wouldn't want a family member getting themselves into a mess while trying to be helpful.

What really helped me was installing a key damper. I hardly ever use the thing when running the stove but I close it completely for the summer and it helps slow down any down draft pressure that the stove sees.

pen

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

You can cover the chimney, that should solve the problem, but I would be very careful about any chance of lighting it up next Winter and forgetting about the cover. It wouldn't be pretty to have flaming plastic melting onto your roof to start the new burning season. A full chimney cleaning would be the best idea. They do make chimney deodorizers, but I've never tried them. The baking soda sounds like a good, low cost idea to try.

 

[grommal]

I'm w/ ffjake and geek, I've had good luck with the baking soda in the stove. I never thought about the candle trick! (duh) but will try that in the right case.

If you choose to plug the chimney pipe w/ anything, I suggest you leave a note on the stove. Not to sound morbid but if something happened to you, you wouldn't want a family member getting themselves into a mess while trying to be helpful.
What really helped me was installing a key damper. I hardly ever use the thing when running the stove but I close it completely for the summer and it helps slow down any down draft pressure that the stove sees.

pen

Indeed. In my case, a failure of my own short term memory is more likely. During the off season, I lay a top-down fire in the stove ready to light (except for the newspaper or SuperCedar), as it looks nice through the glass. Since ours is a side-loader, I can attach a note to the side of the splits just inside the door so I can't miss it if I go to light it, yet the note is not visible through the front glass. Best of both worlds.

I'd like to say I was smart enough to figure that out in advance, but what really happened is that I forgot the plug was in the thimble one year and went to light it. Fortunately, I ALWAYS test for sufficient draft before lighting, so that caused me to scratch my head and wonder why I had no draft. After I scratched a while, it dawned on me. "Oh, yeah! The plug! DUH!" After that near miss, I always include the note in the stove. Which reads, by the way, "DID YOU REMEMBER THE PLUG THIS TIME, NITWIT?"

 

[ruserious2008]

I found this forum with this same problem- after starting to burn in a stove I never used since buying this house I was getting awful odors when the stove was not being used. I tried the candle trick and it worked just fine for me. I bought a bag of 50 "tealight" candles for short money and it did the trick. Shortly thereafter I gave up on that stove (insert into fireplace) as it was just not throwing enough heat and started using another stand alone stove in another room that has worked better for me. Funny thing was that stinky stove/chimney stopped stinking on its own. Not sure if it was just "dirty" from sitting so long and thinking maybe a couple of hot fires burned whatever the smell was away but that's what happened. Good luck

 

[rdust]

My stove doesn't put off any smell but the fireplace in my living room is awful when it's damp or humid. I think it needs a good cleaning. I'd love to put an insert in it since I don't burn it anymore, it's just not fun burning a fireplace when I can load the stove and not have to mess with it.

 

[pen]

I think this problem is amplified by some folks shoulder season burning habits.

Rather than building small, hot fires w/ a short life just to take the chill off, they create smoldering fires so they don't have to restart the stove as often. The problem is, a smoldering fire will produce creosote inside of the stove itself that will increase the stink factor. This coupled with folks that run out of seasoned firewood and end the season burning less than par stuff makes the problem even worse.

I purchased my 30 as a 1 year old from a guy that put it in a single wide trailer. He spent the winter with the windows open and that thing throttled down so much that most of the firebricks were stuck together there was so much creosote inside of the stove. First thing I did upon install was put the fires of hell to her to clean that crap up. The god awful smell that it had coming out of that trailer was gone as soon as I let the girl do what she was intended to do, burn hot. The firebricks turned from black, back to white, and have looked that way since.

pen