My stove burped???

[BobUrban]

I have been on here asking a ton of questions and, again, I am grateful for all your answers and your patience with me. It is shoulder season here as I now understand it's called and I learned that small hot fires vs. slow burning low fires are safer regarding creosote build up prior to cold weather and long hot burns.

Lit a small fire this morning for that reason and then let it go almost out before I left the house. When I returned there was still a little heat in there so I tried to get something going with the coals. What I got was a lot of smoke and because it was/is very windy the stove burped back a few times blowing smoke into the house and setting off all the smoke alarms. A bit frustrating but I finally got a good fire going and it has all cleared out except for the smell

The stove is a VC Defiant and I am guessing I did not get it hot enough to draw good in this weather - What say you on the cause and mistakes I made?

Thanks for any input

Bob

 

[remkel]

I think it was more likely the high winds that caused the burping---or a bad can of chile.

 

[begreen]

Might have been the wind or it might have been a puffback. This can happen when the stove bypass or air control is closed prematurely. The fire dies down and starts to smolder. Then a flame erupts and ignites the unburnt wood gases (smoke). This causes a mini-explosion that pushes smoke out of the seams. I've had a few of them in my day, one was a doozy. I learned to never shut off the air to early and let the stove fill up with smoke. Puffbacks can happen more frequently with poorer wood, mild weather causing poor draft, closing off the bypass too quickly, etc.

 

[begreen]

There is an example of backpuffing in the video in this thread:

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/81338/