Ashford 30 Smoke Smell, again

[Woody Stover]

Yep and they really like it. The cat gets dirty and has to be removed and cleaned, but it’s better than the old Momma Bear!

I read recently that owners that have the ash grate don't have that problem. I'm guessing your folks don't have the ash grate?

Now I have an ideal setup and it pulls too hard: still have smell. What’s a guy to do...

I would install the flue damper as @aaronk25 did. IMO his is the most plausible theory put forth so far. I might also try re-doing the door gasket but putting more glue under the area that you think the stink is coming from, to make the gasket tighter against the knife edge in that area.

I just wish someone could find the issue with the door and provide some sort of a fix, if it’s even possible to fix. If it isn’t, I guess I need to consider a non-cat...

Well, I wouldn't want to give up the long, low burns. There are other cat stoves out there to choose from..

 

[Woody Stover]

I was certain regarding my new purchase come spring time. A Chinook was going into my newly constructed house. This smoke thing makes me nervous.......Keystone is probably equal to the Chinook in terms of heat output. Decisions, decisions.......

Depends how big your house is, but on the website they say "up to 1300 sq.ft." for the Keystone..

 

[Calentarse]

Well, I wouldn't want to give up the long, low burns. There are other cat stoves out there to choose from..

Any that burn up to 30 hours, come in white enamel, and heat 2200 square feet with no smoke smell?

 

[Diabel]

Depends how big your house is, but on the website they say "up to 1300 sq.ft." for the Keystone..

This sucker will have to heat 1000sqf very well insulated walkout basement and if any heat migrates upstairs via small stairwell it will be bonus.

I was thinking of cutting out a hole 2'x4' in one of the bedrooms upstairs to get the convection going, but it is illegal unless install some sort of fire preventing gizmo.

 

[Woody Stover]

Any that burn up to 30 hours, come in white enamel, and heat 2200 square feet with no smoke smell?

I've said it before but I gather you don't have time to read the forum all that often so I'll recap. If you burn the stove low enough to get 30 hrs. out of a load, it must be pretty warm out because the heat output over that time from the BK will be very low. My firebox is only half the size but I can have a few coals left at 24 hrs. if I cut the air down. And even though the stove top is barely warm, my leaky house with uninsulated walls has only dropped a few degrees room temp because it's not that cold outside. So instead of loading onto the coals and burning the load in for 30 minutes with the air wide open, which is stated in the manual and many BK owners here say you must do, I will instead shove the remaining coals to the back and light a top-down fire, have no smoke out of the stack while the stove comes up to temp, and not burn up wood unnecessarily in the process. Lighting a top-down fire is easy for me so I don't place a high priority on always having a coal bed to load onto. On my 16' liner, with the stove rear-vented and temps as high as the upper 50s outside, I can burn at any air setting/draft strength I want, with no smoke smell or smoke roll-out when I open the door (side loader, so it's less prone.)
My little stove won't heat 2200 sq.ft. but other cat stoves will. No, most of them won't have the Wife Approval Factor of a white enamel stove (which I would also find attractive) but the WAF isn't the top priority for me either..it's all about stove quality, engineering and performance. And I don't care if occasional visitors are impressed with the look of my stove or not. My rear-vented into the fireplace setup has got to look better than a big ol' ugly black pipe dominating the space anyway.

This sucker will have to heat 1000sqf very well insulated walkout basement and if any heat migrates upstairs via small stairwell it will be bonus. I was thinking of cutting out a hole 2'x4' in one of the bedrooms upstairs to get the convection going, but it is illegal unless install some sort of fire preventing gizmo.

Kind of a threadjack here but this topic has been flogged to death so many times with no resolution that BKVP doesn't even show up anymore. I think aaronk25 may be onto something though..
The Ks would heat the heck out of that space, and you would feel the radiation of the stove within line-of-sight of the stove, within most of that room..a help if some of that heat is going upstairs, and the downstairs might be a couple degrees cooler. It's gonna depend how much heat you allow to go upstairs. You don't have another stove up there, I take it? I moderate the heat going to the bedroom by how far I have that door open. Ash grate=High priority for me. That and the big window is why I went from the Fireview to the Ks.
A 2x4' opening would allow a huge amount of warm air upstairs. You might want to go with a bigger stove if cutting your heat bill is a consideration.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Kind of a threadjack here but this topic has been flogged to death so many times with no resolution that BKVP doesn't even show up anymore.

I feel this is unfair. BKVP has been very helpful on this forum even just in recent weeks reaching out to customers with this problem. (See the above referenced post 771 of the BK thread.). He may not even have seen this current thread as he’s out of the office this week and next (he mentioned that while helping a customer of an old stove get a manual). Just because he hasn’t responded to this particular thread in the few days that it has been open doesn’t mean the company has given up on addressing the issue.

 

[blacktop37]

Do you have a new air tight house? I would not trust any stove with a modern tight energy efficient home without an OAK. Any exhaust or furnace flu, gas hot water flu, dryer, cook stove vent, bathroom fan could cause a belch of smoke. A tiny amount of smoke would smell. Even the cold outside air coming into a hot stove creates such an exchange of air it is amazing to watch in the glass as the sparks shoot out the stove at amazing speed.

 

[Woody Stover]

I feel this is unfair. BKVP has been very helpful on this forum even just in recent weeks reaching out to customers with this problem.

OK, that was overstating it on my part. He tries to help but all he can do is run through the standard fixes, which don't work in some of these cases. I'm sure they're working on it but until they come up with an answer, that's where it stands. It's been going on for years..

 

[SuperJ]

I fixed my Ashford smoke smell, by correcting the door/front panel alignment (this was suggested by Dennis from Blaze King Canada). Had to shove it to the left a fraction of an inch to better center the knife edge on the gasket. The smell is a small fraction of what it used to be, I attribute that to the creosote soaked gasket.

 

[Ashful]

I just wish someone could find the issue with the door and provide some sort of a fix, if it’s even possible to fix. If it isn’t, I guess I need to consider a non-cat...

There is a new Ashford door with a new type of gasket that has been shipped by BK to at least one hearth.com member for testing. So far, feedback is positive. I think it's in the usual BK Performance thread, but several pages back, at this point.

I am very interested in this too. All three are the same stove in a different dress.

I have seen reports of it with both other owners. If you look back on the threads you will see comments from owners of both with the same issue. I'm currently conversing with someone with a Sirocco 20 that has the issue, so it's not just the Ashford and not just the 30 box.

The Ashford 30 must sell 10 to 1 over the Sirocco and Chinook, so a lack of more Sirocco and Chinook complainers is not evidence that the problem is unique to the Ashford.

Agreed. Seems the bk manual sets us up for failure. Requires a very tall chimney but then requires a very low draft. How can you satisfy both? Even if you could, would that stop leakage?

I've just started testing this, but it does appear the target is not very wide. Minimum 15 feet, maximum .06" WC. I can tell you one test on 29 feet of pipe at 27F yielded over 0.15" WC, which is 2.5x allowable maximum. Obviously, that pipe will be getting a key damper, very soon.

...with the BK you can have the proper draft maybe when the thermostat is closed, but what happens when opens up asking for more heat? It will exceed those numbers in no time. I don't know what can be the solution to all this draft issue. What can be the solution is not recommended.

The specification is very clear. You are really over-thinking this. Run stove on high for a period long enough for your chimney to reach equilibrium temperature and pressure (eg. the 30 minutes you're supposed to run on high after closing the bypass damper). At the end of this period, check draft with stove operating on highest setting, and ensure it's under .06" WC. Period. They do NOT (at least in my Ashford 30.1 manual) give any specification of draft requirement under any other operating condition, only "on high burn".

You can’t build a stove and market it to the masses that requires a “critical” draft window. His chimney is a 25’, this stove should be working plain and simple.

There are plenty of simple stoves out there. But here we're talking about the only stove on earth that will go 10-12 hours on each cubic foot of wood you put in the firebox. You can't push the envelope, without expecting some tighter constraints on your setup. Sometimes the envelope pushes back.

25’ straight up, double wall with an OAK, that’s what you call a slam dunk.

See user manual. "Draft over 0.06" WC will void warranty." At 25 feet, I can almost guarantee he's over 0.06" WC by at least 2x. Thankfully, BK has been covering these issues under warranty, anyway.

I feel this is unfair. BKVP has been very helpful on this forum even just in recent weeks reaching out to customers with this problem. (See the above referenced post 771 of the BK thread.). He may not even have seen this current thread as he’s out of the office this week and next (he mentioned that while helping a customer of an old stove get a manual). Just because he hasn’t responded to this particular thread in the few days that it has been open doesn’t mean the company has given up on addressing the issue.

I believe this is correct. I spoke with him last week, and he indicated he'd be unavailable the next two weeks, but he already posted there are folks actively working on this at BK.

 

[coutufr]

We need to be patient and keep experimenting and work has a team to resolve this. Besides that I love everything about this wood stove. Also BKVP is a true professional and one of the most passionate member on this forum. I am confident that a solution that will work for everyone is around the corner.

 

[aaronk25]

One question for anyone with the issue, if your door gasket is looser than it should be to the point where when latch it would fail then dollar bill test, marginally do you have this smell?

Noticed it is worse on a tight seal. Now I’m running a princess, but under the right circumstances on low I get the smell. Now for preserving the cat and maybe other reasons we wouldn’t want to run it this way but, when you notice the smell, ever so slightly start unlatching the handle just enough to take some pressure off the door rope seal. Not enough to show a gap or even change the “glow” of the logs or coals just ever so slightly take a touch of weight off it the seal and let me know if the smell is gone. I think the answer will be yes, but I’d like to know from a few others. Disclaimer: And for gods sake don’t run your stove like this unattended or any significant duration. This is just a test.

I’m going down a different path trying a couple ideas.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Ashful]

One question for anyone with the issue, if your door gasket is looser than it should be to the point where when latch it would fail then dollar bill test, marginally do you have this smell?

Noticed it is worse on a tight seal. Now I’m running a princess, but under the right circumstances on low I get the smell. Now for preserving the cat and maybe other reasons we wouldn’t want to run it this way but, when you notice the smell, ever so slightly start unlatching the handle just enough to take some pressure off the door rope seal. Not enough to show a gap or even change the “glow” of the logs or coals just ever so slightly take a touch of weight off it the seal and let me know if the smell is gone. I think the answer will be yes, but I’d like to know from a few others. Disclaimer: And for gods sake don’t run your stove like this unattended or any significant duration. This is just a test.

I’m going down a different path trying a couple ideas.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

There are so many threads on BK smoke smell now, I’m losing track of the source of various comments made, but I do recall reading one account of exactly what you’re saying. Namely, tightening the door latch made the smell immediately and noticeably worse on the hinge side. The comment was made in just the last two days, if you want to try to find the original source.

 

[BKVP]

I've said it before but I gather you don't have time to read the forum all that often so I'll recap. If you burn the stove low enough to get 30 hrs. out of a load, it must be pretty warm out because the heat output over that time from the BK will be very low. My firebox is only half the size but I can have a few coals left at 24 hrs. if I cut the air down. And even though the stove top is barely warm, my leaky house with uninsulated walls has only dropped a few degrees room temp because it's not that cold outside. So instead of loading onto the coals and burning the load in for 30 minutes with the air wide open, which is stated in the manual and many BK owners here say you must do, I will instead shove the remaining coals to the back and light a top-down fire, have no smoke out of the stack while the stove comes up to temp, and not burn up wood unnecessarily in the process. Lighting a top-down fire is easy for me so I don't place a high priority on always having a coal bed to load onto. On my 16' liner, with the stove rear-vented and temps as high as the upper 50s outside, I can burn at any air setting/draft strength I want, with no smoke smell or smoke roll-out when I open the door (side loader, so it's less prone.)
My little stove won't heat 2200 sq.ft. but other cat stoves will. No, most of them won't have the Wife Approval Factor of a white enamel stove (which I would also find attractive) but the WAF isn't the top priority for me either..it's all about stove quality, engineering and performance. And I don't care if occasional visitors are impressed with the look of my stove or not. My rear-vented into the fireplace setup has got to look better than a big ol' ugly black pipe dominating the space anyway.
Kind of a threadjack here but this topic has been flogged to death so many times with no resolution that BKVP doesn't even show up anymore. I think aaronk25 may be onto something though..
The Ks would heat the heck out of that space, and you would feel the radiation of the stove within line-of-sight of the stove, within most of that room..a help if some of that heat is going upstairs, and the downstairs might be a couple degrees cooler. It's gonna depend how much heat you allow to go upstairs. You don't have another stove up there, I take it? I moderate the heat going to the bedroom by how far I have that door open. Ash grate=High priority for me. That and the big window is why I went from the Fireview to the Ks.
A 2x4' opening would allow a huge amount of warm air upstairs. You might want to go with a bigger stove if cutting your heat bill is a consideration.

Woody,

Respectfully I haven't gone anywhere. We are trying to work with those folks that have issues. There is so much "static" and multiple threads covering the same 6-8 owners that we are using PM.

We've not found a definitive solution. But as you read here, in one circumstance, moving door alignment seems to have helped.

In other circumstances it has not. Unfortunately the very nature of this is install application specific.

We are trying...customer satisfaction is our most important goal in these instances.

Thank you
Chris

 

[Calentarse]

One question for anyone with the issue, if your door gasket is looser than it should be to the point where when latch it would fail then dollar bill test, marginally do you have this smell?

Noticed it is worse on a tight seal. Now I’m running a princess, but under the right circumstances on low I get the smell. Now for preserving the cat and maybe other reasons we wouldn’t want to run it this way but, when you notice the smell, ever so slightly start unlatching the handle just enough to take some pressure off the door rope seal. Not enough to show a gap or even change the “glow” of the logs or coals just ever so slightly take a touch of weight off it the seal and let me know if the smell is gone. I think the answer will be yes, but I’d like to know from a few others. Disclaimer: And for gods sake don’t run your stove like this unattended or any significant duration. This is just a test.

I’m going down a different path trying a couple ideas.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

@aaronk25 you are absolutely right, this reduces the smell. I’m on a freshly charred load, tstat on 330 o’clock for the night, about 40 mins into the reload, cat engaged. I undo my handle but hold pressure on it keeping the door shut. Smell goes almost entirely away.

@Ashful It was me that noticed that the smell got worse with the tightening of the door latch. I only recently tightened mine after having my first few fires with the new stove as I was giving it a once over before I had my first long hot burn. I only slightly tightened the handle. I think it made the smell more pronounced.

 

[coutufr]

Air rush inside the wood stove picking up the creosote odor and bringing it inside to wood stove. I guess regular wood stoves do not smell because the handle is looser and there is always air seeping inside. For us air kills the CAT [emoji250] so the door needs to be super tight.

 

[coutufr]

My father has a cheap wood stove bought 30 years ago. He burn any kind of wood with anything on it. He changes the door gasket only when it is worned out. He likes to make small burns and he cut the air getting inside the stove to the max. I lived there 20 years and my bed was just above that stove. I have never smelled the creosote smell when the door was closed. This is why I think the solution lies in the door gasket.

 

[Gotrek]

Scirocco owner. We had what's I'd call more of a creosote smell then smoke. Smelled like Mesquite BBQ. And only when running low and slow. I read your thread in the past and noticed my gasket was crushed in one spot. BK got me a new gasket and I installed it and it fixed the problem for the most part. I noticed a bit of smell again this year but I believe I'm due for a door adjustment as this point

I'll report back if that doesn't do it

and it won't be soon since we're going back into the -3X celsius range this week The stove runs 24/7

 

[Calentarse]

Scirocco owner. We had what's I'd call more of a creosote smell then smoke. Smelled like Mesquite BBQ. And only when running low and slow. I read your thread in the past and noticed my gasket was crushed in one spot. BK got me a new gasket and I installed it and it fixed the problem for the most part. I noticed a bit of smell again this year but I believe I'm due for a door adjustment as this point

I'll report back if that doesn't do it

and it won't be soon since we're going back into the -3X celsius range this week The stove runs 24/7

Yes, it is a sweeter, even burnt oil smell. Some say it smells like creosote - I'm not even sure exactly what that smells like. No smoke is ever visible on my stoves with the issue.

 

[Tegbert]

Scirocco owner. We had what's I'd call more of a creosote smell then smoke. Smelled like Mesquite BBQ. And only when running low and slow. I read your thread in the past and noticed my gasket was crushed in one spot. BK got me a new gasket and I installed it and it fixed the problem for the most part. I noticed a bit of smell again this year but I believe I'm due for a door adjustment as this point

I'll report back if that doesn't do it

and it won't be soon since we're going back into the -3X celsius range this week The stove runs 24/7

I’m in the same boat occasionally I get a smell (and most times it’s when I’m right up on it checking the cat thermometer never really in the room) and I agree that I think it’s is a creosote smell not smoke. I want to think that is what everyone who’s having this issue is smelling the same thing and just saying it’s smoke since they have a fire in a box in there house. But since we can’t just hop on in to their stove room and verify the smell we have to go by what they are saying.

Back on to the draft measurement I know the ashford 30.1 manual says a max of .06. I was curious since I don’t recall that being specified in the ashford 25 manual and sure enough I don’t see it anywhere. Is the insert less sensitive to draft measurement or whatever? Seems weird that one calls a specific max and another does not.


Lopi Rockport
Blaze King Ashford 25

 

[Ignerence]

It would be great to know some of the various solutions on the public forum? My sirocco 30.1 still has a odor to it I try solving off and on. I love the stove functionality, appearance and burn times, its just that dang lingering odor! haha My neighbor pops by and they have a Myriad 2 with <12' total chimney with no odor issues... he always comments on the smoke smell and will look up and down the stove trying to solve my issue... Can't say it doesn't embarrass me as we both know what I paid.

Its worst when I'm on low and turn it to high.... then I notice the smell a lot above the hinges, then above the stove and up with the heat to the roofline and it drops down in the cooler areas of the house..... the bedrooms.

I tried replacing my door gasket with the woodlands high density white gasket, as its tighter woven. It helped, however the problem remains tom some degree. The door seal is definitely tighter with this gasket and I have a prefect indentation in the middle of the gasket all the way around the door so I suspect door alignment is fine. I have gone as far as to order a second door assembly from my local dealer to experiment with. When it arrives I plan to get to business too fully high temp silicone the window gaskets and window retainers, and door gaskets in. Where else could the smell be escaping from is how I look at it?

Previously I added 4' of class A double, to make my chimney have a total of 14' class A, and 6' of double wall. two 45's hooked together for only a 3" offset to avoid a roof stud. This is 20' of total chimney and the smell is still there even at -40 (crazy crazy amounts of draft, even with the stove cold & off it will suck a paper towel clean up the chimney).

While not a major odor or issue and it is livable, if It could be solved it I bet my neighbor alone would buy a BK the next day as he see's how efficient it is but his first comment every time over is about the mild sweet lingering smoke smell that hits you when you come inside.

 

[lsucet]

It would be great to know some of the various solutions on the public forum? My sirocco 30.1 still has a odor to it I try solving off and on. I love the stove functionality, appearance and burn times, its just that dang lingering odor! haha My neighbor pops by and they have a Myriad 2 with <12' total chimney with no odor issues... he always comments on the smoke smell and will look up and down the stove trying to solve my issue... Can't say it doesn't embarrass me as we both know what I paid.

Its worst when I'm on low and turn it to high.... then I notice the smell a lot above the hinges, then above the stove and up with the heat to the roofline and it drops down in the cooler areas of the house..... the bedrooms.

I tried replacing my door gasket with the woodlands high density white gasket, as its tighter woven. It helped, however the problem remains tom some degree. The door seal is definitely tighter with this gasket and I have a prefect indentation in the middle of the gasket all the way around the door so I suspect door alignment is fine. I have gone as far as to order a second door assembly from my local dealer to experiment with. When it arrives I plan to get to business too fully high temp silicone the window gaskets and window retainers, and door gaskets in. Where else could the smell be escaping from is how I look at it?

Previously I added 4' of class A double, to make my chimney have a total of 14' class A, and 6' of double wall. two 45's hooked together for only a 3" offset to avoid a roof stud. This is 20' of total chimney and the smell is still there even at -40 (crazy crazy amounts of draft, even with the stove cold & off it will suck a paper towel clean up the chimney).

While not a major odor or issue and it is livable, if It could be solved it I bet my neighbor alone would buy a BK the next day as he see's how efficient it is but his first comment every time over is about the mild sweet lingering smoke smell that hits you when you come inside.

He always is going to say something, that the way he gets back at you. Just kidding.
I will like to know if there is a way of sealing the intake, Bypass, Ash plug, cat probe hole, bypass handle shaft and be sure door gasket pass the bill test and put the stove under vacuum from the top at the collar and see if it holds it. That could be a good test.

 

[Gotrek]

Hard to do a dollar bill test on a door with a knife edge.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

 

[shoot-straight]

Woody,

Respectfully I haven't gone anywhere. We are trying to work with those folks that have issues. There is so much "static" and multiple threads covering the same 6-8 owners that we are using PM.

We've not found a definitive solution. But as you read here, in one circumstance, moving door alignment seems to have helped.

In other circumstances it has not. Unfortunately the very nature of this is install application specific.

We are trying...customer satisfaction is our most important goal in these instances.

Thank you
Chris

Chris, you have handled it like a true professional.

 

[coutufr]

For those that are still looking at improving the smoke smell issue, have anyone tried with below 15% humidity and did you saw a decrease in the smell?