I have a Woostock Fireview stove which I absolutely cherish. This is the third season I've had my stainless insulated liner installed in my chimney. All of a sudden, it seems like I can't start a fire without smoke coming out the door, or if I feed the stove and have the door open just to get it going I get smoke in the house now. Strange. It seems to have started a week or so ago when it was warmer out, which would also be normal for my setup. This am it's 22 degrees out and the symptom is there...really annoying. I unhooked the stove from the pipe, removed it and used a soot eater to clean out the connecting pipe and the pipe in the wall all the way to the chimney liner which then turns and goes up. I got a little crud out of there but it wasn't too bad. Could there really be an obstruction uo there causing this? The top of the pipe has a cap with screen mesh so I doubt a squirrel or bird got in there. I'm leaning toward calling and having a chimney inspection done, just had it done a year ago but something seems to have changed with my draft. Has anyone experienced something similar?
My stove recently started back puffing
- Thread starter MJFlores
- Start date
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Binoculars or ladder. Get a look at your screen on your chimney cap.
If you have used paper to start a fire, blowing wet snow, or for whatever reason, it is possible to have crud build up on the cap screen. If in doubt have the whole system cleaned by a reliable sweep.
If you have used paper to start a fire, blowing wet snow, or for whatever reason, it is possible to have crud build up on the cap screen. If in doubt have the whole system cleaned by a reliable sweep.
black smoke signals
Feeling the Heat
6inch pipe = sooteater poly cut to 6inch after time poly gets smaller. I cut my sooteater to 7inch and I think it does better cleaning in the cap screen on my pipe. OP do you have pictures of your setup maybe one of engineers (after webby advise) will chime in. There is one very popular poster here who could put his mouth over the pipe and tell all of us how to fix any problem
Squisher
Minister of Fire
When draft inexplicably weakens. It's usually time for a thorough cleaning of the whole system including the cap.
If I'm following your description properly you did not clean all the way to the cap? Barring a bunch of elbows and horizontal run, the top of the chimney will always have the most build up.
If I'm following your description properly you did not clean all the way to the cap? Barring a bunch of elbows and horizontal run, the top of the chimney will always have the most build up.
yeah, ill bet that the pipe up near the cap is filled. if you can get on the roof, go up and inspect the cap. thats the easiest way to make sure its clear....clean the pipe while you are up there, top down. good luck.
Attaboy
Member
![[Hearth.com] My stove recently started back puffing](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/194/194071-ef7a95776315bdb636109b1b5fd21d38.jpg?hash=vTif5tnnfM "[Hearth.com] My stove recently started back puffing")
Looks like a neighbor's that I helped her clean a few weeks ago. The stove absolutely quit burning. The cap was laying in the yard and looked just like that. She's an elderly lady and her brother in all his wisdom deemed it defective and just took it off. You can imagine what the top 3 feet of the chimney looked like.
yup, time to clean the pipe. take off that cap and run it top down if you can. probably got quite a build up in there toward the top. if you can't get to it from the top, would run that sooteater all the way up.
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