*PICS* - New Pacific Energy Alderlea T5 - Smokes the room on start up with door closed + outside air question

[grizhearth]

Hello all,

I have had a new PE alderlea T5 installed this summer and I am now running first fires of the season to learn this new stove. One bit of frustration is that during a cold startup, a significant amount of smoke billows out from the bottom of the stove and fills our house with smoke...even with the front door completely shut! I was expecting a little smoke if the door is open but was expecting it to be sealed off if I shut the door. The smoke only backdrafts into the room until the chimney warms and a proper draft starts up.

I looked under the stove to see if I could locate where the smoke is coming from. I thought that maybe the ash dump door was blocked with a chunk of coal or something, but I made sure it was clear before starting a fire. After I lit it up, I could see that smoke was coming out of the air control intake. The air control has a triangular shaped stainless flap that covers or uncovers a large hole (see picture). The smoke comes out of this open hole. There is also a small drilled hole, maybe half inch in diameter next to the air control that some smoke also blows out of. Does anyone have any experience with this and have any advice? Any thoughts on what that small hole is next to the air control intake (see picture)?

My house is a new modern home, single story with a whole house fan. The whole house fan takes room air and blows it to the outside...it has no off switch, only high or low. For this reason the house is constantly under negative pressure and therefore I requested the installation of an outside air connection for the stove with the perhaps naïve expectation that this would separate the stove draft properties from the pressure of the house. My set up is essentially a straight shot chimney, there is a small 30 degree or so offset near the ceiling. The stove was professionally installed by the company that sells PE stoves and the installation was inspected.

The air control system is at the bottom front of the stove while the outside air comes in at the bottom back of the stove. It appears that the air control intake is not connected in any way to the outside air intake. The air control is open to draw from the room air only. I presume that once the air control lever is shut closed, the stove draws from the outside air. Not sure why it was engineered this way - what I was hoping for was outside air draft to be most beneficial on cold startup before the chimney draft is established and stove really needs to overcome the negative house pressure. I also rarely completely shut the air control lever completely shut so as to avoid smoldering the fire. Seems like my set up likes just a bit of air from the air control system.

Lastly, I was wondering if anyone could advise me on the proper installation of the outside air. My installer used flex tube and simply pushed it into a large hole on the bottom back of the stove (see pictures). Is this sufficient? It is in now way sealed from the room air and I was able to easily remove the flex tube from the hole. I was expecting there to be an air tight adapter or something, perhaps at least some furnace tape or something like that.

thanks you...all advice and discussion welcome.

 

[begreen]

The issue is not with the stove. The stove is in a negative pressure zone. This could be hazardous if draft reverses as the stove is cooling down, but still has hot coals. The remedy may require changing the whole-house ventilation system to an HRV that replaces the exhausted house air with preheated outside air.

Some remedy startup issues by blowing a hairdryer on high heat over the baffle towards the flue outlet. Others use a propane torch and some burn some candles in the stove for an hour or so to warm up the flue.

The situation may improve as the weather gets colder and draft gets stronger. Adding some more chimney height may also help. How tall is the flue system from stovetop to chimney cap?

 

[grizhearth]

Thank you for the reply, that is good insight about when the stove cools back down. I don't know how tall it is. I added some pics. I measured the section inside from the stove top to the ceiling at about 6 feet. The stainless pipe on the outside shows 4 feet on the proposal, but it looks longer than that to me. All pipe is 6 inch.

Its a bit disappointing that the outside air I had installed isn't involved with the initial draft, oh well. I wonder if it helps to start up more to the back of the fire box rather than the front?

 

[begreen]

It looks like there is about 6 ft of chimney outside, so a total of 12-13' maybe? The T5 is a pretty forgiving stove for draft, but in this case it may be fighting the house ventilation. If your dealer/installer is a cooperative sort, maybe they have an additional 3' length of chimney pipe in stock they could try and add as a test? If it works then great.

Try preheating the flue to establish draft. Then start the fire using the top-down method like this video illustrates:

 

[grizhearth]

That's a good idea. I am going to have to talk to the installer anyway since I don't think they installed the outside air flex duct properly. The flex duct is simply sitting on the air intake openly and is not sealed. I read the manual and it mentions an adapter...


Once the stove is in place, attach the 4" OAIR adapter to the Ash Box Enclosure. Connect the adapter to the metal with 4"(100mm) i.d. flexible metal ducting.

 

[EbS-P]

Constantly on whole house fan just seems like it would cause all sorts of issues with a wood stove. What cfm is it moving? I’d find the breaker that the fan is on just to see how much of a difference it would make on start up with no fan. Is there an outside fresh air return to the house? I know my parents kitchen exhaust fan was rated high enough they were required by code to put in an outside air return.
Evan

 

[grizhearth]

Constantly on whole house fan just seems like it would cause all sorts of issues with a wood stove. What cfm is it moving? I’d find the breaker that the fan is on just to see how much of a difference it would make on start up with no fan. Is there an outside fresh air return to the house? I know my parents kitchen exhaust fan was rated high enough they were required by code to put in an outside air return.
Evan

I think the fan runs 50 cfm on high and 30 cfm on low, operated by a standard light switch. The plans for our house called for small air intakes at every living area, but my builder said they have it coming in through the hvac system. The windows are also vented, but I keep those closed. I think the fan has some settings because I know there is a timer for how long it takes to switch from high to low. I'm going to remove the ceiling cover to inspect the fan and get the model number so I can figure out what I can do to get manual control of the fan.

Some of these automated systems drive me nuts. we have another fan in our garage that is connected to a motion sensor with the idea that when you park in the garage it kicks on and evacuates the garage. however, if I'm in the garage working it is constantly kicking on and off. kinda annoying.

I still was hoping the outside air accessory would have been our work around. I wonder if other modern stoves have the air control connected to the outside air or if they also take in room air regardless if you have outside air system?

 

[Highbeam]

I think the fan runs 50 cfm on high and 30 cfm on low, operated by a standard light switch. The plans for our house called for small air intakes at every living area, but my builder said they have it coming in through the hvac system. The windows are also vented, but I keep those closed. I think the fan has some settings because I know there is a timer for how long it takes to switch from high to low. I'm going to remove the ceiling cover to inspect the fan and get the model number so I can figure out what I can do to get manual control of the fan.

Some of these automated systems drive me nuts. we have another fan in our garage that is connected to a motion sensor with the idea that when you park in the garage it kicks on and evacuates the garage. however, if I'm in the garage working it is constantly kicking on and off. kinda annoying.

I still was hoping the outside air accessory would have been our work around. I wonder if other modern stoves have the air control connected to the outside air or if they also take in room air regardless if you have outside air system?

Some stoves certainly have a “sealed” intake system where every bit of intake air comes through the 3” intake pipe. My BK is this way and my previous Hearthstone was the same. My Englander nc30 stove has only one of four intakes fed by the outside air pipe. So it really does vary.

I had hoped PE would have done the 100% outside air feed but dang. Still, your installer half assed it.

I didn’t realize Idaho was so over the top with these fan requirements. Or maybe it was your builder that had a bad experience once.

 

[grizhearth]

Some stoves certainly have a “sealed” intake system where every bit of intake air comes through the 3” intake pipe. My BK is this way and my previous Hearthstone was the same. My Englander nc30 stove has only one of four intakes fed by the outside air pipe. So it really does vary.

I had hoped PE would have done the 100% outside air feed but dang. Still, your installer half assed it.

I didn’t realize Idaho was so over the top with these fan requirements. Or maybe it was your builder that had a bad experience once.

Thank you for this info! My county doesn't require whole house ventilation that I am aware. They have the most relaxed regulations that I have ever been a part of actually, LOL. I bet I will be able to just cut power to that fan if I have to. Our builder is a corporate outfit based out of western Washington that has an office that services north Idaho. They are one of those builders that you choose your floor plans and make whatever custom changes you want and they build it according to their plans. So I think the ventilation system is part of the package so they can cover all the different regulatory requirements from different areas.

 

[webby3650]

The outside air hook up is crap.. you know though.
I think you simply need to get some heat in the flue before you try lighting the fire. Get your kindling and wood ready to light, shoot some heat up the flue with a propane torch, after a minute or so, light a piece of news paper to verify you have a draft established. Then light the wood charge. Here’s a great torch for this purpose.
JJGeorge Grill Torch Charcoal Starter Amazon product ASIN B076HSB7MM

 

[vwmike]

I’ve had experience on both these fronts. We require whole house exhaust fans on all new builds as a bare minimum code requirement. Almost all new houses are set up this way as it’s cheap and easy as compared to a hrv. Every new build I’ve been involved with, we always hide an on off switch somewhere so they can be shut off, it’s technically a violation but no one ever catches it.

I’ve also had a Pacific energy stove backdraft like you. Mine was on an Up and out class A where yours is straight up and out so your draft should be a lot better. The outside air intakes on them aren’t air tight, so when they back draft it will still leak some
Smoke back. I always cracked my patio door, then lit a top down fire, once the flue had even the tiniest bit of heat present it drafted fine.

 

[Woody5506]

My T5 will smoke like this during mild temp days at startup. It helps a lot as others have said to heat up the flue first, if even for 30 seconds with a torch. In my situation the stove is right next to a sliding door so usually I'll just open it and use a box fan next to the stove to blow out any smoke. What I've noticed also is closing the door right at startup under these conditions can sometimes be worse for smoke spillage than keeping the door cracked. I have about the same length of chimney as you as well.

 

[grizhearth]

Thank you all for the feedback. I can follow up today with a few observations from yesterday’s burn.

First I tried opening the window that is next to the stove with the hope that it would equalize the pressure near the stove. After doing this I had no smoke come out, although it was colder here yesterday and maybe it was just drafting better.

Secondly, I opened the cover to the whole house fan and found the factory settings. I was able to set the cfm setting to zero and shut the fan off. Now when I use the switch on the wall it goes from off to on. However, when on, the cfm is noticeably faster than before. I looked up the manual online and it looked like it defaults to 80 cfm at this setting when before it was running at 30 cfm and was much quieter. It’s too bad I couldnt switch from off to the quieter setting to make things easier and less annoying. The manual makes it clear that the fan is meant to be on and running continuously. So I changed it back to the previous setting until I figure how much of a problem the startup smoke will be.

It’s progress so I’ll take it.

 

[Hogwildz]

Reverse draft causing backflow from under the stove is not uncommon. I have had it happen at fresh start for the burning season. If it happens a lot, then you ahve an issue, it it is a couple times of cold starts, IMO not as big a deal. I have founf that what is used for fuel at cold start up also plays a factor in smoke issues. I've been using pine 1" x scraps set across a couple small to medium splits, and have had very good experiences with that way. Fat woods & paper products have produced the worst results for me.

 

[Woody5506]

I have founf that what is used for fuel at cold start up also plays a factor in smoke issues.

Good point. What I've been using this year for shoulder season wood is Siberian Elm, which although 3 year seasoned still doesn't light up too well. It's basically garbage wood that eventually gets going and produces heat like anything but unless split quite small it's gonna billow smoke for a bit.

Whenever I start up with ash or maple, its hardly an issue.

 

[Das Jugghead]

I cannot imagine that a whole house fan that is on 100% of the time will make for efficient, pleasant, or safe operation of the OP's stove. As previously pointed out by another member, once the stove cools down to a point where the draft generated by the hot chimney is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative pressure generated by the whole house fan, the stove will essentially be venting into the living space.

The "outside air intake" is not sealed to the intake of the stove - all it does is allow air into the house in the hopes that the stove will utilize it before the whole house fan does. This will never work. My suspicion is that, even if you had a very tall flue, at some point toward the end of the burn cycle the whole house fan would cause the stove to back draft into the living space.

I am sure there is more than one way to skin a cat but I would recommend considering building an air box attached to the bottom of the stove that connects to your outside air thereby completely sealing the air cycle of the stove (intake air and exhaust gasses) from the living space.

 

[Grizzerbear]

I would just turn that whole house fan off until spring/summer.

 

[Highbeam]

I would just turn that whole house fan off until spring/summer.

My last house was new construction at the time and had a whole house fan like this that was forced on us by some code. It had a timer though which was easy for me to disable.

80 cfm. pretty much just a typical bathroom fart fan. Most of those are just 50 cfm so we're not talking some sort of huge attic fan or range fan but if the house is sealed well enough then yep, 80 cfm is enough to reverse a flue.

 

[Grizzerbear]

My last house was new construction at the time and had a whole house fan like this that was forced on us by some code. It had a timer though which was easy for me to disable.

80 cfm. pretty much just a typical bathroom fart fan. Most of those are just 50 cfm so we're not talking some sort of huge attic fan or range fan but if the house is sealed well enough then yep, 80 cfm is enough to reverse a flue.

I had had one, albeit, in a old farm house that must have been 20 years old. It had a dedicated shut off switch and you could switch from high to low. In the winter I just covered it with a piece of foam insulation to reduce some heat loss. I will say in the summer time if you cracked some opposing windows in the house and kicked that baby on high it woul pull the curtains in towards the fan lol. I couldn't tell you how many cm it moved but sitting by the window it felt like a tornado. Pretty useful really. They aren't that popular around here anymore but you see them in a lot of older homes.

 

[Highbeam]

I had had one, albeit, in a old farm house that must have been 20 years old. It had a dedicated shut off switch and you could switch from high to low. In the winter I just covered it with a piece of foam insulation to reduce some heat loss. I will say in the summer time if you cracked some opposing windows in the house and kicked that baby on high it woul pull the curtains in towards the fan lol. I couldn't tell you how many cm it moved but sitting by the window it felt like a tornado. Pretty useful really. They aren't that popular around here anymore but you see them in a lot of older homes.

What you're describing is nothing like what the OP is dealing with. The 24/7/365 code required fan is low flow and tries to suck out polluted air gradually with minimal noticed effects to the temperature or air flow. Where that whole house fan is meant to cool the house quick!

Your big whole house fan was actually pretty useful and probably more than 10-20x as strong or 1000-2000 cfm+. A modern residential range hood fan sucks 250-1250 CFM out of the kitchen.

A clothes dryer is between 150-250 cfm.

 

[Grizzerbear]

Ahh lol....I got ya now. Code doesn't really get enforced around here unless you live in a bigger city like springfield or a hoa accredited contractor does the construction so I wasn't familiar with it.
Edit: I couldn't for the life of me figure out why a whole house fan only moved 70-80 cfm lol.

 

[joop]

roll paper put in stove near baffle,. warm the chimney .do it on my dovre all the time otherwise a house full of smoke lol