Smoke smell driving us nuts

[Romy]

With the cold weather setting in, I've been burning more steady. I've gone through a couple bags in the last week. My problem is the smell of smoke permeates through the house. Its very strong at startup and worse if the stove is cycling on the thermostat once the house is warmed up. The firebox and ashpan rope gaskets look fine. The flue gasket is new and I've sealed every joint and seam on the vent pipe. I removed the side and back covers at startup and shined a 500w work light around to try and see where the smoke could be coming from but I don't see anything. I have a smoke and carbon monoxide detector in the room so I'm not too worried about it but my wife is asthmatic and very sensitive to it.

I searched the 4m for smoke smell and found a lot of threads but could not find anything specific to the Harman Advance.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Bigb62]

might be a silly question, are there any windows or doors that may be letting the smell in? The seal on the hopper? I'm a newbie, so just asking the obvious.

 

[Romy]

might be a silly question, are there any windows or doors that may be letting the smell in? The seal on the hopper? I'm a newbie, so just asking the obvious.

Replacement windows on that end of the house are tight. Hopper gasket seems fine though I'm not sure what that has to do with it. If I open the hopper even when its running all I can smell is pellets.

 

[tchdngrnby]

Darken the room, light the stove and then use a flashlight to inspect each joint. I have found it is much easier to find those wisps of smoke that seem to only happen at start up and go away once everything warms up and expands sealing the leaks. I normally find a leak on the bottom of the tee or where it attaches to the exhaust on the stove. One remedy that I found to be effective is to take about a 12" piece of 3/8" rope gasket and pack the void between the outer wall of the tee and the cap and again at the tee and the exhaust connection. Leave yourself a small tail of rope gasket hanging out so you can remove and reuse the rope gasket after cleaning your vent system.

Hope this works.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

how do you have your venting run? is there a cleanout tee inside the house? they are notorious for leaking. if the tee is inside next time you have the unit shut down ,remove the tee cap at the bottom hold it up to a light looking up through the gap between the inner "cup" and the outer shell of the cap, if there is a small piece of "ropelike" insulation , pull it out to look. ive seen them with little gaps where the inner cup wall and outer shell are molded together , seal with high temp RTV, problem solved

 

[cncpro]

I had a lot of smoke smell from the Quad CB1200 this year. I had been keeping the latch side of the door adjusted throughout last season as the gasket became compressed but neglected to adjust the hinge side. I finally tweaked it about 1/8 inch tighter on the hinge side and the smoky smell is totally gone.

 

[Pellet-King]

I just got done cleaning my Whitfield Advantge 2T and now starting it back up i smell smoke from the blower tubes in front, ran it past few days dirty from last year and no smell, my house has hardwired smokes with CO detection.
I pulled the stove out from the fireplace "insert" and as running felt for any leaks from T and pipe, which seem fine.
Removed the firebrick and did my yearly thorough cleaning, i have owned this stove for over 10 yrs.

 

[gbreda]

I just went through this exact same thing with a newly installed P68 with ICC vent pipe. The smell was there on startup, when the stove was in miant mode for a while and during shutdown. I used the darkened room with drop light method when starting a cold stove and found smoke towards the bottom of the T.

I sealed the bejesus out of the stove to starter pipe connection by removing the stove collar with the starter still attached and sealed it inside and out with silicone. Dont really think that this was the problem, but now it wont be.

After that, I checked each gasket, cleaning a few of them from some crud that was there.

Wet slightly (spit on ) each gasket so that it would seal better and less likely to flip.

Put all back together (for the fourth time ) and seems to be fine since Thursday night. I get a very very faint smell on startup. Other than that it is fine.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

A forum member pointed me in the right direction and gave me valuable advice in the process.

 

[Romy]

Thank you everyone for your great suggestions. I think turning off all the other lights in the area and just using my work light helped me the most. Turns out I didn't do as good a job as I needed to sealing the vent pipe. Duravent sucks. If I could, I would dump the whole mess back on the counter at my hardware store and demand my money back. Even the little rivets were spewing smoke. With those sealed and a couple little spots I missed I think I got it.

Again, thanks everyone who contributed.

 

[gbreda]

Finding and sealing the leaks can be a pain in the arse, especially if you dont want to show a crap load of silicone sealing. Tape looks better, but a good seal from the manufacturer is what we pay for, right? When you finally get it right, it's a load (pun intended) off your mind

 

[ablejoy]

I had a leak at a seam in the tee coming out of the stove. The dealer resealed the tee at the stove joint till it leaked bad enough to find. The tee was replaced and we have had no problems since.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Glad you got the problem solved. Looking at my manual, it also warns that during startup, you can get a wisp of smoke out of the air wash gap on the door if you dump too much fuel into the burn pot at start up. Just another suggestion. Most 'pop rivets' can leak. There are special pop rivets that seal, FYI.

 

[JBlank912]

Interesting but I found certain pellets caused more Smoke smell. I burned Pennington's last year, no smell. Then clean fires, no smell. Then a final ton of Pennington's, but these were different packaging Penningtons. THEY SMELLED. This year, its reverse. The last of last years Pennington's, and they smelled. Now switching to Clean fire, no smell.