Smoke on start up

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khpony

Member
Sep 28, 2019
47
Rociada, NM
I have a newly installed Pelpro PP130. It heats great but it does have one odd situation. After being off all day and starting it up towards the evening I get one small puff of smoke from the blower vent in front and then everything is fine. That doesn't bother me but it does my wife. I have vented it straight up thru the existing wood stove roof vent. Once started it draws and operates flawlessly. Any thoughts? Thanks
 
My Harman does the same thing, sometimes, when it’s cold…burn chamber fills with smoke then when it ignites there’s a bit of a poof….quite a few members here have posted about it as well
 
So you have smoke blowing out into your house? That doesn't sound right. Does it actually smell like smoke or could it be dust left over from the mfg process? Or, it could be the paint curing (but I wouldn't think that would happen at start up).

If it is actually smoke, there may be a crack somewhere between the burn area and the air path from the convection blower to the air vents. Although, I suppose you could actually have a small leak in the exhaust path that is getting sucked into the convection blower and expelled by the air vents. Actually, that may be the more plausible answer.
 
If it's actually coming from the blower vent, it sounds like a small leak somewhere in the heat exchanger. That one puff probably happens when the pellets ignite which on some stoves is like a mini explosive like thing and there's an instantaneous pressure increase.
I would also check the door gasket with the dollar bill test. I don't know what your stove looks like, but if the top of the door is close to the vent and there's a leak at the top of the door during that "poof" ignition of pellet smoke, it could "look" like it's coming from the vent, but actually coming from the top of the door.
 
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My pelpro pp70 is brand new,mine leaked smoke the first run and every time it ignited.
It was the door seal at the top,there was soot and I couldn't get a clean burn.
Replace the gasket on the door and it's fine now and burns clean. I'm getting a day and a half on 40# bag. I'm running around negative 2-3 on trim.
 
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