Napoleon 1100 smoking into the house

[makoda]

I looked through the old threads and found this one. Naploeon 110 Burning fine for a month- Now smoked out! Same wood, 3' more pipe??

This is the exact problem I am having with my stove so I was wondering if anyone knew what was the fix and also if this is a common problem? Will climb up and check the cap in a day or 2. I checked the baffles and they are pushed back.

Anyway I am also new to this forum, when we built our house a few years ago I had the contractor put in a woodstove for me as a back up heat. Now I am looking to use it full time to save money. So is this a very good stove in your opinion? Our house is 1300 sq ft ground on main level plus a basement. So far on the main level it keeps the house heated pretty good even with -20 nights lately and if you put wood in at 10 you still have some coals at 8 in the morning. My only dislike is the small firebox front to back and the smoke problem that has started after burning for about a month or so.

 

[makoda]

does anyone with the 1400 ever have this problem? They look to be a lot the same from what I can tell.

 

[makoda]

okay well this morning I may have figured out what the problem was. Will still check the cap when I get a ladder, but when I put wood in this morning I put in a couple of pieces that are a year or two old and they don't put off enough smoke that it comes back out, but the wood I have been burning lately is many years old from a fallen down tree in someones field. It smokes a lot so when you use it smoke will roll back out I think just because there is too much to suck it up. Does that sound about right?

Also another question I have about over firing. I didn't worry about it at all until getting on this forum, but I thought maybe knowing a few good checks would help me figure out if I am too hot. Because I am recently disabled we don't have any money to buy a thermometer to check temps so I was wondering. If I am still getting some black on the glass with most fires I would guess I am not burning hot enough. And most of the time you can put your hand on the top and sides without it feeling too hot. A couple times I have put the better wood we have on some coals for the night and there was no black on glass, but you couldn't hold your hand on the sides either. The house also gets to around 80 degrees and it is in minus temps outside at night. So is that the stove being overfired or just running about right? I don't want to ruin our stove, but at the same time the damn thing needs to be able to hold a fire.

And maybe there is no way to tell where to run things without a thermometer, but thought I would ask. Sorry in advance for stupid questions. We had a heatking I believe growing up that ran coal and wood, but I was so young I don't really remember much about burning other than doing the grunt work of bringing in wood and coal. I will get better though.

 

[Rickochet]

The only way to really run your stove is to have a flue thermometer and a stove thermometer. I can't imagine trying to operate my stove by just guessing at the temps. A flue thermometer isn't very expensive and it could save you from having a chimney fire. Cheap when compared to the cost of your deductible.

 

[Kosmik]

Get a thermometer. Sell/pawn something if you have to. It is the most valuable tool next to the stove.
I went my first 4 weeks without one...
Wish I hadn't waited so long. Really helped me get a feel for the stove and how the cycle goes.
I was thinking I ran a hot fire, but most were way too low (and probably overfired a few times too), and I wasn't getting the chimney warmed up right first thing without it.

I really don't feel you could run one without until you've run it with. Eyeing it really only work if you know what you're eyeing (same wood, same stove, same weather...).
My fires are very different from start to finish now. Still have crappy wood, but I have less problems.

I hardly see a difference in the firebox between my stove running 650-700 and running 450...
There are too many variables that affect it, I can only tell a slight difference looking now because I've been reading off the thermometers frequently and staring at the fire for the last week.

Probably want two thermometers. One for stove and one for flue.

 

[gchunter]

One other item you may want to look at is to make sure the 2 baffles inside the stove have not shifted toward the front of the stove. When they move forward they restrict the amount of gases that go up the chimney.