My wife and I just moved into our new home this past spring where we decided to install a Lopi Leyden wood burning stove (all 8" duravent pipe, approximately 30' of exposed black pipe inside the house, a large vaulted ceiling with no attic in the home, and approximately 10' of exterior stainless steel pipe of which I'd guess 5-7' rise above the roofline, and two each roof ridges that are approximately 8-10' from the top of stove pipe cap). We began burning for the first time late November 2009 and have ultimately had very good luck for a couple of amatuers. We have been burning a lot of walnut, elm, hickory, and some oak that we cut down where our house is now located on the property a couple years back; however I finally got around splitting it this past fall. We have not had to run the furnace but maybe a half dozen days this winter and that had mostly to do with the fact that we were away from the house for a day or two. Our fires have started fairly easy, the stovetop reaches around 400F after about an hour of warmup at which time I reload the stove and begin to close the damper and supply less air to the chamber. Most fires burn 400F-550F and after we reload before going to sleep at night in the morning the stovetop is still around 300F and doesn't take much effort at all to get it back up in action.
However, just the last couple of weeks we have been having some trouble. We are burning all hickory for the most part now and I don't know if its just me but it seams like the hickory burns best when its in a "hot" fire and not as good of a wood for starting a new fire? Lately, when I go to open the stove (topload) it "burps" up a little puff of smoke back in my face which the stove really has not done at all to me earlier this season. And last night for the first time ever we must have had a terrible "cold air blockage" at the top of the stove pipe where it exits the house and the smoke got so bad inside the stove and the cold air must not have let it break through that the smoke actually started coming out into the house where the interior black pipe connects to the exterior stainless steel pipe; and not until a whole lot of smoke later and some better oak kindling that enabled the pipe to heat up did it finally break through...has anyone else actually had "cold air blockage" this bad before? And is it common for a top load wood stove to "burp" back at you a little puff of smoke when reloading? I don't know if it was possibly just the conditions last night outside (only 10F) and some flurries, or if it was that I just had some bad/wet kindling and small chordwood that didn't take off like it should have during fireup, or what? And with regards to the smoke when we reload if that might be in effect due to the fact that possibly our exterior pipe is not tall enough with respect to the near-bye roof peaks and our downdraft is too bad?
Any suggestions or comments would be great. Thank you for your help.
However, just the last couple of weeks we have been having some trouble. We are burning all hickory for the most part now and I don't know if its just me but it seams like the hickory burns best when its in a "hot" fire and not as good of a wood for starting a new fire? Lately, when I go to open the stove (topload) it "burps" up a little puff of smoke back in my face which the stove really has not done at all to me earlier this season. And last night for the first time ever we must have had a terrible "cold air blockage" at the top of the stove pipe where it exits the house and the smoke got so bad inside the stove and the cold air must not have let it break through that the smoke actually started coming out into the house where the interior black pipe connects to the exterior stainless steel pipe; and not until a whole lot of smoke later and some better oak kindling that enabled the pipe to heat up did it finally break through...has anyone else actually had "cold air blockage" this bad before? And is it common for a top load wood stove to "burp" back at you a little puff of smoke when reloading? I don't know if it was possibly just the conditions last night outside (only 10F) and some flurries, or if it was that I just had some bad/wet kindling and small chordwood that didn't take off like it should have during fireup, or what? And with regards to the smoke when we reload if that might be in effect due to the fact that possibly our exterior pipe is not tall enough with respect to the near-bye roof peaks and our downdraft is too bad?
Any suggestions or comments would be great. Thank you for your help.