Smoke in House?

[rost495]

Hi. New here to the forum and pleased to find it.

Bear with me a bit, I read up on draft and such and thats probably the main problem. Older circa 96 or about Earth stove.

We had it in our mobile home and had enough pipe height to get over the ridge line. Even though the side of the roof faced the north to start with. Never had a smoke issue at all.

We gave it to friends who have an late 1800s house, VERY steep roof line... he did not get enough pipe to get it above the roof line and probably at this point my rough measuring says if you do the horizontal measure to roof, its about 9-10 feet off so pretty close to suggestion.

The question that happens now and then... he lights it small wood, 1-2 inch stuff and very dry pecan. It'll burn with door open and get going and then he closes door as it gets going good and most times all is fine.

But 3 times now its burning away good and watchign it and the fire dies. And then the whole house fills with smoke.

The only at that point if he closes both dampers the house really fills with smoke worse than leaving both open.

We NEVER had anything more than a puff in the house. I guess i never realized that even with both dampers totally shut there must be some way for smoke to pour out regardless.

The only other thing I note, I have not been back over there, he could not find more class A chimney 6 inch ID to get teh height required so all that was found in our small town was single wall... thats what he put on. Will double wall Class A make that much difference? FWIW the wall he came out of horizontally to get outside the wall and then go up, per instructions we found online by pipe makers is class A. That goes almost 20 inches inside, then 12 incehs double wall SS pipe and to a 90 turndown to single wall about 50 inches to the top of the stove. Then out the wall to a 90 and up 2 pieces of class A and then 3 of single wall.

Hope thats enough data. I"m still baffled that smoke can come back in the house somehow.

I know you'll all say we have to get the right pipe for him and thats on the list if we can ever find compatable brand.... of course what I had is no longer made and sizing is different OD....

but I'm mostly curious if the class A at top will make that much difference or if its a height thing.
AND mainly why is smoke coming back in house?

 

[dougand3]

Welcome to the forum.
Class A is either double walled or triple walled. There is no single wall that I've seen. Minimum is [6" inner pipe/1"insulation blanket/8" outer pipe].
Chimney height rule - 3/2/10....1. Must be 3 feet above roof deck exit. 2. Must be 2 ft above any roof object within 10 feet diameter.
Smoke in house sounds like poor draft...poor chimney, warm weather
Is there single wall pipe ABOVE the class A? That won't keep heat in the flue and probably a code violation.
Pics of this setup would help troubleshoot.

 

[rost495]

Welcome to the forum.
Class A is either double walled or triple walled. There is no single wall that I've seen. Minimum is [6" inner pipe/1"insulation blanket/8" outer pipe].
Chimney height rule - 3/2/10....1. Must be 3 feet above roof deck exit. 2. Must be 2 ft above any roof object within 10 feet diameter.
Smoke in house sounds like poor draft...poor chimney, warm weather
Is there single wall pipe ABOVE the class A? That won't keep heat in the flue and probably a code violation.
Pics of this setup would help troubleshoot.

Yes, exactly he put single wall non A on top of what I had left as Class A.

My thoughts were too, that doing that the pipe above can't stay hot enough to keep draft going. That will get fixed in time. Its just the tough thing to find pipe to match somehow.

RE code, yeah I"ve heard that a billion times, we don't have codes so thats not an issue save for the safety issue and I can't see that being a safety issue as is. Single wall in other places damn sure could be a safety.

Any answers on the smoke in the house? I had assumed when you closed both dampers that totally shuts a stove down? Could something be blocked that allows smoke to back up into the house when the draft reverses?

One last question... due to house construction etc... we are going to have to have appx almost 20 feet of pipe... any idea if it might be better to pour a footing and have someone rock in a cheap quick chimney instead of all the pipe issues. Pipe is almost 200 bucks a stick in the end and then you have a horrible weight problem to support on class A. 6 or 7x 200 is 1500 bucks almost...

 

[dougand3]

Smoke in the house is this extremely poor draft issue. Smoke leaves by path of least resistance. If there is little assistance with draw in the flue pipe, smoke will leave by any air opening in the stove. Smoke in house won't get fixed till chimney is fixed. Warm weather where you are? Makes it worse.
I don't know masonry chimney costs but gotta think a proper Class A chimney would be much cheaper. And yes, you can't change brands of Class A - they don't mate well.
I had a similar situation once...bought stove with 5ft of Class A pipe from cathedral install. I needed 9 ft of Class A. Trying to buy a few parts of the old Class A was more expensive than getting a whole new Selkirk Class A chimney system. What's your location? Are you near a Lowes, Home Depot or Menards?

 

[rost495]

Close to home depot or Lowes, about 45 minutes away.

Thats what I figured in the end. We must have never had a bad draft issue. Because we never had smoke.

Ok on cost wise, I was just thinking brick laying is a no brainer, easy to DIY on that type of stuff. Will move forward.

Temps wise... depends on your version... we've been running 40-30s for lows and not much more than 50-60 for highs most times. If over that no need for stove.

Only issue now, how the heck do we support all that frigging weight...

Thanks, jeff

 

[dougand3]

50* temp will make draft poorer, esp from a cold start. In my area, Lowes sells Selkirk Supervent Class A chimney at ~ $28/ft.
Read about installation - good info here.. (broken link removed to http://www.selkirkcorp.com/supervent/)

 

[jeff_t]

Only issue now, how the heck do we support all that frigging weight...

Sounds like you have ~3' horizontal? How are you supporting it now? Chimney manufacturers sell supports that attach to the wall that will support many feet of class A pipe. Maybe a picture or two of his setup would help.

 

[Wood Duck]

I am not sure I understand the sequence of events that leads to smoke in the house. If the fire dies out, rather than close the dampers, I'd open the damper(s) and maybe crack the stove door to get as much draft as possible and get the fire going again. This doesn't address the problem with smoke getting into the house, but might eliminate the smoke in the first place.

I hve pretty good draft most of the time, but in warmish weather or when we get strong, swirling winds my draft can become poor until I get a hot fire in the stove. A hot fire fixes all my draft problems, but on start up I can have problems sometimes.

 

[Jon1270]

...and I can't see that being a safety issue as is. Single wall in other places damn sure could be a safety.

The flue temp will drop sharply in the single-wall section, and that's where creosote is most likely to condense. Inviting creosote buildup is a safety issue.