Some smoke in stove is normal right?

[steveg_nh]

I know a proper burning fire is very important. I would say I have far from a lazy flame, and not one that looks like a torch either. My measured draft is perfect, but when running on the highest setting, 5, I do get one large swirl of smoke on the left side of the firebox, that is promptly evacuated by the exhaust and out.

I assume this is normal, given the size of the fire and the HOT cubex pellets. This thing roars on 5, so I don't see how you could not have any smoke in there. Even the fire itself reaches the top of the inside, and rolls off to both sides. Just checking with those that know more than me. Here's a picture, although it's hard to see the smoke on the left, but you can easily see the fire quality.

Thanks!

 

[TimfromMA]

As long as you don't have smoke in the house, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Wilbur Feral]

So not knowing Enviro's my only question is whether you lose efficiency when on highest setting. With my Quad, if the flame extends much beyond just touching the exchanger the heat output is not dramatically increased even though the flame is larger, roars more, and consumes far more pellets. The flame may be less efficient than on a lower setting, though. I wonder if that's part of the issue, and what would happen with a lower serting?

 

[tjnamtiw]

My question is are you overfiring the stove and going to warp it or burn it out? What does your manual say the height of the flame should be on the maximum setting? Quads call for 4-6" high flame on HIGH and we adjust feed accordingly. It sure looks like you need to be making some adjustments.

Also, you shouldn't be getting any smoke, especially smoke you can see coming out your exhaust.

 

[Ranger72]

Also try different brand pellets. When I went through a ton of NEWP last season, ps not a fan, I would get some trace amounts of smoke here and there. Nothing major, just as the steveg_nh described.

 

[bcarton]

I think a lot of us new owners have questions about what the stove should look like at it's highest output, and how hot one can safely run it. I have an old Enviro, and on full "Red Zone" mode with the Dial-a-Fire all the way up it looks scarier than hell. The flames stop just short of blasting the heat exchanger, but man o man that is a lot of fire. Dwyer gauge shows a perfect -.12 draft at full tilt. I still haven't dared to run it for more than 6 or 7 minutes like that. No smoke, just a huge blast of flame. If that was my old wood stove doing that, I would prepare for evacuation, with the phone already dialed 9-1... but with pellets I just turn it back down. I'm not at all sure that in southern NH, it would ever get cold enough for me to want to run it that high.

 

[steveg_nh]

Interesting posts, thanks guys. I find that on setting 4, a step down, the flame just barely touched the top, but the output is reduced enough that the stove can't always keep up when the temps are colder. So there is definitely an increase in heat output when on 5. But I certainly don't want to overfire or warp anything, but I would think, since I've done nothing unusual to get it like this, that if it was that easy to do and cause a problem, that a lot of people would be having a problem. I would like to find a video of ire size on setting 5. I'll have to check out the enviro videos.

 

[steveg_nh]

Now this is weird. I just looked over and saw the side of the stove just to the left of the back plate with glowing embers. Not sure what was going on I shut the stove off. It looks like embers burning on the back. And I noticed the sides are black ash. It's not thick or anything but black.I just lightly rubbed it and you can see the path the scraper left. Came off like nothing. This pic kind of shows it. I'll clean the stove good this morning but given good draft and flame am I having some other issue? Or is it ok to see some glowing stuff settling here and there?

(broken image removed)

 

[BrotherBart]

Looks like an air leak to me.

 

[steveg_nh]

In the firebox? The vent? This is all pretty new to me. Just had the stove put in in October...Leaning like drinking from a firehose. If I had a leak, wouldn't my draft measurement be way off?

 

[steveg_nh]

I also just noticed that the soot on the glass is much more white than chocolate brown like it was recently. Perhaps I should double check my draft/damper again. When I cleaned it the other night I accidentally hit the damper slider and opened it way up. But I checked it afterward when it was hot. Maybe I screwed up. Don't think so but easy enough to check again.

 

[Bridgeman]

Smoke is normal on startup only. Pellet stoves should not smoke at any setting. Smoke indicates incomplete combustion for some reason. I would think an air leak would be the most common cause but I'm not a technician. I would think a pile of smoldering pellets outside if the burn pot air flow would smoke too. The pellets should be burning in the burn pot only. Are you over feeding pellets so they drop out of the pot before they are fully burned?

 

[steveg_nh]

It actually wasn't pellets outside the burn pot, but just some something smoldering on the wall in the back. I'm going to give it a good cleaning this morning and check it again.

How do you check for an air leak? I have a one piece SS liner to the top of the chimney. The only connection poiints on the exhaust would where the vent connects to the exhaust port of the M66 frame. Or is that not even what you guys are taking about? Maybe a door seal or something like that?

Thanks for helping me.

 

[steveg_nh]

Well, I'm wondering if it was just too dirty. All burn pot holes in the bottom were clogged, as was the liner. I could have sworn I cleaning it Tuesday, but my wife said it was this past Sunday...Not good. I need to start writing it down. It looks good now, but it just fired up. I'm going to recheck the damper, and then keep an eye on it. I am curious then, with a potential air leak, where you are looking for that. I am now thinking that's more door seals and stuff like that vs exhaust.

Interesting too, the white soot on the glass literally wiped right off. No elbow grease or anything else needed.

 

[tjnamtiw]

Since you were getting smoke and incomplete combustion, that was probably creosote building up and then went you went to 'balls to the wall' setting, the extra heat burned off the creosote IMHO. When I burn my stove on low, I'll sometimes see creosote on the last half of the heat exchanger tubes. Turning it up to HIGH for 1/2 hour or so burns it off and we're back to grey ash.

 

[steveg_nh]

It ran a long time yesterday on low, given that it wasn't that cold out here. It's on a tstat. No heat calling, runs on setting 1 (low), calling for heat, runs on 5.

Looking at it now, I feel like there's still some smoke, and the black ash is quickly building up on the sides already. I wish I could post an actual video of the burn. Actually, I can, I'll post a link from my website shortly.

 

[steveg_nh]

Here's a couple of quick videos. I can play them fine in VLC player and MediaMonkey, but for some reason, when you just try to stream it, it says it's corrupt. Might be because my site isn't configured for streaming. So just download it and watch it. Windows Media Player, for some stupid reason too, only plays the audio track, not the video...grr. If no one can get it to work, I can try another converter later.

(broken link removed)
(broken link removed)

Also, I just checked the damper, and it was a bit off. 0.14" WC. It's around 0.16" now, but can't imagine that made that much of a difference.

Thanks

 

[Golfeur]

the videos here well for me

 

[bcarton]

I had black ash building up on the sides of my old Enviro EF2. Finally just opened the damper 1/4" and it's all gray now. The magnehelic guage was spot on when running at high, and real close at medium to medium low. The book does say that "some fuels may require higher or lower settings." If you're getting black ash, you're got getting enough air.

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest you read this: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...lazy-and-or-getting-smoke-in-the-house.11413/

 

[tjnamtiw]

It's very interesting to see how other brands of stove burn. Your flame pattern is TOTALLY different than my Quads'. In my stove, most of the burning is done INTENSELY in the burn pot with a swirling blue flame and some yellow flame escaping several inches out of the pot. I was quite surprised to see the two 'streams' of flame coming straight up and curling off of the top plate with little intensity. I have no idea if that's normal or not.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

How many bags have you put through the stove?

Have you inadvertently disturbed the damper?

Is the damper properly placed and any control linkages properly connected?

How do you clean your stove?

Have you changed any of the trim controls on the stoves controller?

Have you had any loss of power to the stove?

Did you write down all of your stove settings once the stove was installed and placed in operation?

Please describe the vent and air intake setup.

M55 s had a bit of an issue with overfiring, there were two things added IIRC a higher capacity convection blower and a feed reducer plate for the auger.

 

[chken]

There should be no smoke except at startup when the fire is not very hot. If you get smoke later, it could be something in the pellet itself that is not combusting well. Black soot on the sidewall indicates not a hot burn. White ash that is easy to wipe off on the glass is a good sign that indicates a hot burn.

So, you've got some contradictory stuff going on, though, it could be the black soot was earlier, and the white was later when you adjusted things.

As for the vids, the first one seems to show a big fire that's a little too big, the flames can lick the top, but shouldn't necessarily be bent over, except for brief moments. The stove could be running just fine, with the right amount of air, but perhaps the pellet size is small meaning that there's more fuel dropping into the grate than normal. More fuel, lots of air can equal a big fire.

Also, the first vid seems to show a nice active flame on the right, but a lazier flame on the left side. Something is going on on that side.

 

[chken]

On that setting, how quickly are you going thru a bag of pellets, because you may be above spec, i.e. you're burning faster than the stove is rated for. The only way to know for sure is to determine how fast you are going thru a bag. My 47k btu stove is rated to go thru a bag in 7 hrs on its highest setting.

 

[steveg_nh]

How many bags have you put through the stove?
Have you inadvertently disturbed the damper?
Is the damper properly placed and any control linkages properly connected?
How do you clean your stove?
Have you changed any of the trim controls on the stoves controller?
Have you had any loss of power to the stove?
Did you write down all of your stove settings once the stove was installed and placed in operation?
Please describe the vent and air intake setup.

Have you inadvertently disturbed the damper? I just rechecked it with a magnahelic gauge. It's spot on now. 0.16" WC.
Is the damper properly placed and any control linkages properly connected? Yes, as far as I can tell.
How do you clean your stove? Every 3 days or so I clean it all out with an ash vac, and once a week I go further and pull the back of the firebox off, etc, and do a deep cleaning.
Have you changed any of the trim controls on the stoves controller? They are all set to the default of mid, 3.
Have you had any loss of power to the stove? Nope, none noticed. She throws HEAT!
Did you write down all of your stove settings once the stove was installed and placed in operation? Pretty much, and everything is as is. I did just switch from a pallet of Maine's Choice to Cubex, and the Cubex definitely are cut up smaller. Maybe overfeeding.
Please describe the vent and air intake setup. 4" SS flex Chimney pipe straight from the vent connection on the M55 frame straight up 25' to the top of masonry chimney. Full SS cap on top of 3 flue chimney. So all vertical venting.

There should be no smoke except at startup when the fire is not very hot. If you get smoke later, it could be something in the pellet itself that is not combusting well. Black soot on the sidewall indicates not a hot burn. White ash that is easy to wipe off on the glass is a good sign that indicates a hot burn.

So, you've got some contradictory stuff going on, though, it could be the black soot was earlier, and the white was later when you adjusted things.

As for the vids, the first one seems to show a big fire that's a little too big, the flames can lick the top, but shouldn't necessarily be bent over, except for brief moments. The stove could be running just fine, with the right amount of air, but perhaps the pellet size is small meaning that there's more fuel dropping into the grate than normal. More fuel, lots of air can equal a big fire.

Also, the first vid seems to show a nice active flame on the right, but a lazier flame on the left side. Something is going on on that side.

I think you're on to something with pellet size. The Cubex pellets are cut up much smaller than the Maine's Choice I was using. I bet I'm overfeeding.

I'll cut the feed trim down to 1 from 3. I'm also going to increase the air combustion trim from the default of 3 to 5, which will add more air. I'll see what that does...

The white ash was on the glass, the black on the sides and top. I think I know how I got the ember deposits on the back side, and it was from the curling flame. And as for the fire have two sides and nothing in the middle, that was just at that time...a bunch of pellets had just dumped and they were in the middle...usually the whole thing is solid. I agree the fire seems too big though.

On that setting, how quickly are you going thru a bag of pellets, because you may be above spec, i.e. you're burning faster than the stove is rated for. The only way to know for sure is to determine how fast you are going thru a bag. My 47k btu stove is rated to go thru a bag in 7 hrs on its highest setting.

I got through a bag about every 8 hrs if I run on 5 with no tstat intervening. With the tstat controlling it, I'm averaging about 2 bags a day. House is 3700 sq ft, open concept, so the stove is heating the whole thing to about 72 degrees.

 

[steveg_nh]

I had black ash building up on the sides of my old Enviro EF2. Finally just opened the damper 1/4" and it's all gray now. The magnehelic guage was spot on when running at high, and real close at medium to medium low. The book does say that "some fuels may require higher or lower settings." If you're getting black ash, you're got getting enough air.

If you haven't done so already, I would suggest you read this: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...lazy-and-or-getting-smoke-in-the-house.11413/

If I open the damper up a bit more, WC will go to about .20". Maybe these Cubex needs more air...they are HOT pellets for sure.