F55 smoking

[Glen Johnson]

I have the same issue, my stove smokes so badly thatI have to use a shop vacuum with the discharge hosed outside and the suction at the top of the door opening. Otherwise I get smoke and ash fly. MY previous stove had no issues at all. I can watch the smoke follow the reburn plates, as they tilt upward towards the door. And even if I crak the door as suggested in the book to let it flame up for increased draft it still rolls right off the plates and out the door.

I was wondering if I shortened or removed the reburn plates if this wold solve my problem? think it is a general characteristic of this wood stove.

Any help would be greatly appreciated?

 

[jetsam]

It's a Jotul F55 that smokes only when the door is opened?

Not familiar with that stove, but in general that means weak draft. We are having very mild weather on the east coast right now. Does it always do that? How tall is the stack, is it insulated, and how many elbows does it have? (pictures always help.)

 

[webby3650]

The problem isn’t with the stove, it’s your setup. As jetsam said, some description or pictures would be great. Something is pulling the smoke out of the stove. Chimneys suck, so do many other things... range hoods, furnace, bath exhaust etc.

 

[begreen]

I have the same issue, my stove smokes so badly thatI have to use a shop vacuum with the discharge hosed outside and the suction at the top of the door opening. Otherwise I get smoke and ash fly. MY previous stove had no issues at all. I can watch the smoke follow the reburn plates, as they tilt upward towards the door. And even if I crak the door as suggested in the book to let it flame up for increased draft it still rolls right off the plates and out the door.

I was wondering if I shortened or removed the reburn plates if this wold solve my problem? think it is a general characteristic of this wood stove.

Any help would be greatly appreciated?

Not a characteristic of the stove. Is this a basement install? Does the flue go up, then out the wall to an exterior chimney? Is it 6" all the way?

 

[Glen Johnson]

It's a Jotul F55 that smokes only when the door is opened?

Not familiar with that stove, but in general that means weak draft. We are having very mild weather on the east coast right now. Does it always do that? How tall is the stack, is it insulated, and how many elbows does it have? (pictures always help.)

 

[Glen Johnson]

As you can see in the pictures I have doors open on both sides of the stove. With just hot coals in the bottom of the stove when I open the door ash fly comes out, as soon as I add wood within one minuet smoke comes out. The chimney is on an outside wall. It was lined with 6" insulated stainless steel sleeve. Everything was cleaned at the start of the season, It does not accumulate much with the insulated sleeve. The basement cleanout is capped off. If I have a good fire going and open the door I will get smoke and flames out the door in my face if I am not careful. The stove is located on the first floor living room and the cleanout is in the basement. The stove has not gone out completely for months so the chimney is always warm or hot.

I ran a Jotul F600 top loader for 18 years prior to this with no issues as long as I opened the by-pass damper on the stove and waited about a minuet for the fire to heat up.

 

[begreen]

Thanks, the pictures help. This should work fine. I suspect there may be plugging somewhere. Is there a screen at the chimney cap? Has the connector pipe been pulled and checked for any plugging?

 

[Glen Johnson]

No screen and everything has been cleaned. The liner is insulated and the stove runs constantly.

 

[begreen]

The behavior is atypical, so the question is why. I would start with the basics. Is the baffle properly in place. Is there an unobstructed smoke path over the baffle to the flue outlet. Is there any accumulation blocking the flue system.

 

[Woody Stover]

Who cleaned the chimney? Same person who cleaned it previously with the F600? It's possible that when the chimney was brushed, a pile of creo fell to the bottom of the connector pipe and is sitting on the baffle, blocking the pipe at the base. That's one reason that begreen suggested removing the connector pipe to have a look..

 

[Glen Johnson]

The behavior is atypical, so the question is why. I would start with the basics. Is the baffle properly in place. Is there an unobstructed smoke path over the baffle to the flue outlet. Is there any accumulation blocking the flue system.

I have done everything that the seller has suggested as well as anything I could think of. The seller said to check the baffle/re-burn plate as it could have moved in shipping. He also suggested that some insulation may have fallen and could be blocking something. Of course I did a thorough internal inspection, I can see above the burn plates all the way over to the discharge and there is no blockage. The stove has acted this way since its installation and I started with a clean chimney, new stove pipe from the stove to the chimney and a clean chimney, the tee connector was visually inspected and cleaned. The bottom cleanout was uncapped, cleaned and recapped.

The stove design has a reburn plate that covers about 80% of the inside top of the fire box. It is tight against the back and sides of the stove, the only place the smoke can travel is up, across the plate and at the front of the stove there is a section about 4" by the width of the stove where the smoke is supposed to turn up and back to the rear then up and out the flue outlet. The reburn plate is angled upward from back to front pushing the smoke towards the front of the stove. So when I open the door it seems to just roll right off the plate and out the door. I read months ago that someone with the same stove and problem removed the reburn plate and cut 6" off the front edge giving the smoke a larger area to rise above the plate. I think this is a design flaw that may have worked well under lab. conditions, however, out in the real world it just does not work. I just tried to attach a video with no luck, file to large. here is what you would have seen, I opened the air flow to 100% for about two minuets and opened the door. The stove is just a bed of hot coals at this point in the morning. The ash starts to fly up and out of the top of the front door so badly it covers all of the furniture in the living room. I have never seen anything like this.

 

[Glen Johnson]

Who cleaned the chimney? Same person who cleaned it previously with the F600? It's possible that when the chimney was brushed, a pile of creo fell to the bottom of the connector pipe and is sitting on the baffle, blocking the pipe at the base. That's one reason that begreen suggested removing the connector pipe to have a look..

It was I, the chimney, tee connector, basement cleanout are all clean. The 6" pipe from the stove to the chimney were new with the stove installation at the beginning of the heat season last year. This has been a problem since it was installed. all of the common possibilities have been checked and or tried.

 

[kennyp2339]

The (3) back to back 90's maybe your source of the issues here, I understand the old stove had a by-pass and maybe breathed a little easier, but this new stove might be tighter and since you have (2) vertical 90's and (1) horizontal 90 bend the smoke might have to much turbulence.
Each 90deg bend is like reducing the overall chimney height by 2.5ft, so your 16ft chimney height is behaving like a 8 1/2ft chimney.

 

[begreen]

I think this is a design flaw that may have worked well under lab. conditions, however, out in the real world it just does not work.

If you search you will find many of these stoves working very well. The design is sound and not new. Something else is fighting a good burn. I suspect weak draft. Has this been measured?

Glen is there a cap on the bottom of the liner tee or is it open?

 

[Glen Johnson]

Yes, there is a cap on the bottom cleanout. No I have not measured the draft, I do not have the equipment. I will try to locate what I need.