Noobe question about cat stoves

[bfunk13]

I have been burning my insert for a couple months now and very rarely see any smoke from the chimney.
Tonight i went out for some more wood and noticed more smoke than i have ever seen out of this unit. The stove had run for a few hours and was in the active range.
Actually tonight is probably the hottest and longest we have burned the stove. The cat is glowing hot. It is a bit colder tonight than it has been, does that have something to do with it?
I am burning the DREADED PINE, but it is dry.

Thanks for any replies.

Brad

 

[BJ64]

Could it be steam?

If the stove is reducing everything down like it is supposed to (and I see no reason it would not), there will be water created and be in the combustion gases.

Perhaps it is cool enough to condence the water vapor and make it look like smoke. +

Heck even dry wood can have 20% water by weight so we know there will be water vapor from that at least.

I can't see your new stove smoking already, I think it is burning everything to full reduction and it is cold enough that you are seeing the vapor trail.

 

[Pine Knot]

If it's blue it's smoke, if it's white it's steam, but somstimes it is hard to tell one from the other with out good light. They do steam quite a bit in the early part of a burn in cold weather.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

If it is smoke, you can watch it go for a long ways. However, if you see it going just a short distance above the chimney, it is nothing to be concerned about for sure.

 

[bfunk13]

It was a white steamy type. And did not travel far. It just caught me off guard all of the sudden seeing something out of the chimney.
Hopefully everything is cool.

Thanks Brad

 

[Pagey]

I think I had the same issue going the other morning. We dipped into the teens the night before, and when I went out to the wood pile, I noticed a white "smoke" that was condensing a foot or two from the rain cap on my S/S chimney. I had a good secondary burn rolling at the time, and the stove was cruising at a good surface temp. I imagine that the extreme cold was simply causing some of that vapor/heat shimmer that I usually only see to condense as it go far enough from the rain cap. Reminded me of seeing steam from a dryer vent or something.

 

[Todd]

Sounds like steam to me. Sign of high efficiency. Once it gets cold enough out you will see steam for the first couple hours after a reload.

 

[cmonSTART]

Cats don't like to be added on to wood stoves. It burns their little paws.