smoke

[fbelec]

just curious

driving down the street and see many colors
does anyone know what and how the burn is going by color?
seen
black
white
blue
grey
brown

this sounds a little dumb but running 2 non epa stoves i get a few of these and with color comes the different smell also.

 

[martel]

White smoke means we have a new pope.

I don't laugh outloud often sitting at a computer but...

this may be funnniest thing I have seen on hearth.com (with eric's bastard file joke being a close second).

 

[elkimmeg]

White smoke too much moisture in the wood mixing with steam and the pope

 

[Corey]

Ha ha...

Back to the original question. Smoke of any color would generally indicate an oxygen starved fire and the components that give the smoke color aren't being broken down fully in the combustion. As for color, black is probably carbon/soot, blue is likely to be long chain hydrocarbons (i seem to notice a lot of blue smoke out of pine), white is likely also hydrocarbons of a different size range than blue, don't know about brown. It is also important to make a distinction between white smoke...which will come out of the flue and linger until the entire smoke plume dissipates, and steam which will exit the flue and dissipate fairly quickly, even though there may be other smoke seen as well. IE - if it comes out the flue, slowly drifts across your yard, then the neighbors, it is white smoke. If it comes about 4 feet out of the pipe then vanishes, it is steam.

Corey

 

[babalu87]

No matter the color its less money being put in the hands of big oil and that is a GOOD thing

 

[fbelec]

i thought we'd get a few laughs out of this one too.
dylan you forgot.
black smoke means no decision yet

 

[wg_bent]

So let me get this straight..black smoke means.the pope is not buring hot enough...smouldering?

 

[fbelec]

he thru on some real cheap coal :cheese:

 

[fbelec]

or he needs a new set of injectors