Smoke from PE Pacifica

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Just had PE Pacifica installed last week, have been burning 24/7 since. Smoke smell inside house all the time. Can smell smoke from fireplace vents, AND when standing in front of insert with fan on. Not enough to set off smoke detectors or see, but enough to notice the smell. Door is tightly closed

Smoke is not from refueling as hours after refill smell still produced the same.
Seems to be venting fine at top of chimney (approx 19 feet, half inside, half outside)
5'' flex liner used (one piece and completely vertical)
No silicone used at connections as was a tight fit and no room to get hands in. (Email to PE said should not be nec. to silicone)
10 Year old well built home pretty air tight however fireplace has two open vents on each side of insert with 3" dia. & we have had an upstairs widow cracked.

House has a basement, insert installed on main floor in a vaulted ceiling room with a loft style open upstairs area + bedroom/bathroom

Temp outside has been sunny, -10 to -15 Celcius with not much wind as we are surrounded by trees

I just don't believe I should be smelling so much smoke, but this is my first house with wood heat in many years. I hope I have provided enough info on my issue and any comments/suggestions would be appreciated

Cheers

 

[Cearbhaill]

Well, I know I can tell when wood is too wet by the smell of burning.

 

[begreen]

Why the undersized liner on a 19' run? Could that be the issue? Or maybe it's leaking at the flue collar. How is the liner connected to the stove?

 

[myzamboni]

..

 

[LLigetfa]

Cracking an upstairs window will worsen the stack effect, lowering the pressure downstairs. Close the upstairs window and open one downstairs and I'm sure the smoke infiltration will subside. You need to balance the air system for the house. If you have a HRV, clean the filters and the intake screen outside. Check the dryer vent as well as any other exhaust. If there is a separate makeup air intake for the house, check it too. If the stove doesn't get outside air, consider adding it.

 

[[email protected]]

Liner is connected to the flue with a coupler which is pulled down into stove and then secured with screws.

Ran a 5'' liner in order to bypass any structural modifications to the existing fireplace internals as it was able to pull down right thru damper gate. Pacific Energy (according to installer) is able to be reduced from the 6" to a 5" with no issues
Would a 6 inch liner be a better way to go?

Not sure what the wood moisture content is, some was cut and covered since April/May this year & some is from last year.
Even if wood was wet, is the insert air tight enough that it should not smell except maybe when refuelling??

 

[[email protected]]

Should I crack a basement window or main floor window (insert on main floor)

All vents are cleaned, dryer vent clear

Have HRV but is off at the moment (waiting for recall to be completed)

 

[LLigetfa]

Should I crack a basement window or main floor window (insert on main floor)

All vents are cleaned, dryer vent clear

Have HRV but is off at the moment (waiting for recall to be completed)

Cracking a window near the stove will give you a good indication if there is a pressure deficit issue. It will also minimize the cold effect since there is a nearby heat source to warm the cold air.

If your HRV is subject to the same recall mine was, it should be OK to use while someone is awake in the house. The probability of the motor drawing too much current, starting a fire is very remote. Rather than open an upstairs window to evacuate the smoke, run the HRV as it should not upset the air pressure balance. If you have the HRV on crank timers, change the HRV to only run on high speed when the timer is cranked and not run all the time until the recall has been taken care of. My HRV ran constantly for more than ten years before I got the retrofit addressed in the recall.

 

[[email protected]]

We have opened a window on the main floor and had lots of air coming in but it was not near the stove so we tried the upstairs window which had very little air if any coming in. We will try the one closer to the insert. Thanks,

What do you mean by pressure deficit? Am I right in saying the air rushing in the window indicates low pressure in the house therefore harder for smoke to draft up chimney?
How does one increase pressure in the house? or do we just let more air in as a balance.

The hrv has a fan speed setting of 1-4 but only seems to run on full speed no matter what I try. Will have the recall guy give me some pointers on this thing.

 

[LLigetfa]

Warm air rises because it is lighter and if there is anywhere for the warm air to get out, it will. This creates an imbalance of pressure that is evidenced by the in-rush of cold air downstairs near the stove. Opening a window upstairs tends to let warm air out. The same can happen from exhaust fans.

One needs to determine where the air is exiting the home resulting in the pressure imbalance and seal up those leaks. A smoke pencil is good for that, a blower door test, even better.

The home needs makeup air to compensate for the loss. If you seal up every cold draft you feel downstairs, you rob some of the makeup air the house needs. Providing dedicated air to the stove reduces some of the demand for makeup air but doesn't eliminate it completely. If you seal upstairs where air is leaking out, it will reduce the cold drafts downstairs.

 

[begreen]

Liner is connected to the flue with a coupler which is pulled down into stove and then secured with screws.

Ran a 5'' liner in order to bypass any structural modifications to the existing fireplace internals as it was able to pull down right thru damper gate. Pacific Energy (according to installer) is able to be reduced from the 6" to a 5" with no issues
Would a 6 inch liner be a better way to go?

Not sure what the wood moisture content is, some was cut and covered since April/May this year & some is from last year.
Even if wood was wet, is the insert air tight enough that it should not smell except maybe when refuelling??

The first thing I would check to ask if they removed the outside air cover to allow the stove to breathe better. (page 9 in manual)

If they did this and even with cracking a nearby window the draft is poor, then the flue is suspect. I would have removed the damper first or at least notched it and gone with 6". 19' is not that tall a flue. It's only 4 ft above the minimum.

But pursue the HRV first. LL may be quite right here. That needs to be eliminated as a potential source for the problem. Can you turn it off temporarily? Try the stove with the HRV off, no bath fans, stove exhaust fans, or dryer running and a nearby window opened an inch or two. If the stove runs much better than before, it needs an outside air supply.

 

[LLigetfa]

HRV...Can you turn it off temporarily?

BG, the HRV is off because of a recall notice. My thought is that HRV's are now used to provide the general makeup air to the house. During HRV installation, there are balance adjustments made to compensate. My HRV will keep the makeup air damper open even if it is turned off but not sure if the OP's does. I modified my HRV to dump the makeup air to our upstairs bedroom but as you can imagine, cold air doesn't like to go up so with the fan off, I would have a deficit. If my wife closes the bedroom door and opens a window (which she does, ARGH!), the HRV makeup air gets pushed out the window while the other side of the HRV is sucking air out of the downstairs which creates smoke issues.

 

[[email protected]]

When I turned the HRV off due to outstanding recall I plugged the intake & Exhaust tubes due to the cold air entering the basement. I will remove the plugs and try that.

Also I will try with the HRV on for a while

I know we did not remove the O/A cover as manual is unclear as to leave in or out & installer did not know about it until after unit was in. When I asked him about it he said it should be fine.

We did remove the 4" knockout on side of insert for o/a which does line up pretty good with the fireplace vents that were already there ( 3" vents on both sides)

Thanks for everyone's comments & help.

 

[LLigetfa]

OK, now I'm confused about the outside air and what is the O/A cover versus the 4" knockout. It sounds like you simply exposed the stove's air intake to an existing vent that goes to room air. If you have an OA vent on the outside of the building, it should be ducted directly to the stove. In some bad draft situations, smoke can come out the air intake.

 

[[email protected]]

The O/A cover is on the bottom side of the insert. Have to tip insert on its back in order to remove it but the manual is unclear as to when to remove it, when using inside or outside air. So we left as is.
The 4" knockout is on the right side of insert and designed to be ducted to the outside.
My existing fireplace had a 3" outside air vent on both the left and right side of the firebox.
We did not directly duct the 3" vent to the 4" knockout as there is not enough room to work with. I guess technically have a inside air installation but with the two 3" vents it is getting some O/A.

 

[begreen]

So, it would seem based on your observations that the stove is getting enough combustion air, is that correct? If yes, we're back to the restricted flue.

 

[[email protected]]

The fire burns well, responsive to adjustments wth air control. So I would say it is getting enough air.

 

[begreen]

You'll need to get the installer out to check on the stove. They may need to seal the flue collar with stove cement. There should not be any smoke smell once the stove has been burned hot a few times.

 

[Hogwildz]

Was a lower block off plate installed under the original damper area?
Sounds like you may have a heatform fireplace, which is what I installed my insert into. I blocked off the 4 vents because they only let cold air back into the room.
Was the original chimney cleaned before insert & liner were installed? With no lower block off plate that may be part of you smoke smell problem, as might be the vents.

 

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no lower block off plate installed
Not sure what brand firebox is
Chimney was cleaned in the fall - was not too dirty at time of install
My vents do provide lots of heat

We have shut the upstairs window and opended one closer to insert and smoke smell has been cut down. I wouldn't say it is gone yet but better. Next I will be removing the plugs in the shut down HRV and see if that takes care of the rest.