Smoke escaping on startup normal?

[Scottydont]

This is my second year of burning the wood stove. Absolutely love it! I don't burn as my primary source of heat... evenings and weekends when I'm around the house. But I've noticed a funny thing this year that I don't remember happening last year. If I leave the door open for more than 5 or 10 seconds after lighting the fire, a little bit of smoke will start to come out from the bottom of the stove where the fan is. I have a cw2500 insert that has a fan that blows air around the firebox from the bottom. I can see that the draft is ok and that the smoke is going up the liner (no smoke comes out of the door opening) but I am assuming that that little bit of smoke is getting pushed out through the secondary air tubes and outside the firebox. Now I know that the door shouldn't be open anyways but sometimes when I first start it up I like to watch it with the door open for a bit.

Is this behavior normal? Or should I be worried about a crack or broken weld or something?

 

[begreen]

Was the flue and flue cap cleaned this season? It sounds like smoke is backing up somhow. If yes, check the insulation blanket on top of the baffle and make sure it is not bunched up in front of or under the flue collar.

 

[wrxtance]

For the short time I had my CW2500, from a cold start only, the secondary tubes would spill a bit of smoke into the area between the top of my stove and the jacket (opposite of what you are describing but same idea). I think its normal. Once the draft got going well, it'd stop. I would typically just "disperse" the smoke by turning the blower on for a second - not a solution by any means but it got rid of the smoke!

 

[DAKSY]

Sounds like a candidate for some top-down fire practice to me.
Warms the flue up nice & slow & gets a good draft going BEFORE
there's any smoke to back puff...

 

[Scottydont]

Was the flue and flue cap cleaned this season? It sounds like smoke is backing up somhow. If yes, check the insulation blanket on top of the baffle and make sure it is not bunched up in front of or under the flue collar.

Flue and cap were indeed cleaned. There isn't any blanket on my stove. The baffle is firebrick with nothing on top. It doesn't really make sense to me that any smoke would travel out through the secondary tubes when ZERO smoke comes out the door opening. And I can plainly see what looks like all the smoke getting sucked up the flue properly.

If another CW2500 owner had the same experience then I won't worry about it. I'll just be sure to close the door right after light up.

 

[nola mike]

No smoke on startup for me. I leave the door just cracked for maybe a minute before closing it.