Soot on the chimney cap below the flue opening: normal or means flue might be damaged?

[yuryk]

Dear Community!

With my new wood stove I only had 3 burns so far for sake of paint curing and just testing. All of them were overnight. Out of curiosity I wanted to check the chimney cap to see if smoke left a lot of soot or not. I did not find a lot of it, but I found it not only at the top (where the flue opening is), but also at the bottom of the cap, please see below:

2 out of 3 times at night I saw the smoke was spreading down across the roof and then into the backyard. Probably due to air pressure or wind somehow. But it's hard to believe it would leave spots like these if it exited from the top... I'm afraid it might be due to a poor connection between oval-to-round adapter and the flue. They were connected together, but moved a lot up and down during the installation:

Or maybe this is normal. I will definitely check next time during stove operation, but for now wanted to hear your opinion since it won't happen soon. I never used a wood stove before, so very curious to know.

Thank you in advance!

 

[DAKSY]

That doesn’t look like soot to me. It looks more like a light creosote coating. I wouldn't worry about that as much as I would about the tape covering the connection of the two liner sections. If there are screws and a stainless oval-to-round connector under the tape, that’s fine. If it’s only held together with aluminum tape, that’s not up to code. Also, the bottom plate of the cap should be cut and brake-bent to fit snugly on the flue tile to prevent movement .

 

[Highbeam]

Staining like that is normal. Especially cold and wet smoke from a freshly started fire is heavy and will sink and easily stain the cold pipe. You’ll probably notice it most on one side opposite the prevailing wind.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Normal to me. Smoke out of the chimney goes in ever direction especially when a little breezy.

 

[yuryk]

If there are screws and a stainless oval-to-round connector under the tape, that’s fine.

Yes, there are screws, I remember they put black thing first (I assume furnace cement), then drilled holes with screws, then closed with the tape.

Staining like that is normal.

Normal to me.

Normal at the top - yes, but can it leave those stains at the bottom too? It looks as if the smoke gets out of the flue somewhere on the way and gets out through the flue cap (between the cap and external side of the flue). But maybe I'm thinking too much... I will check the smoke next time I burn and let you guys know.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

“Normal at the top - yes, but can it leave those stains at the bottom too?“”

- I think what’s in the pic is normal. That smoke does blow around quite a bit. My cap allow some more air flow I think and I see the smoke blowing everywhere, up and down, side to side etc. At least at first glance, to my non-professional eye, I can’t see how the smoke stain on that cap would be coming from below. With your cap I wonder if the design and positioning of it causes smoke to hit that spot on the cap more than other caps would. That said, unless you’re having a draft problem or other issue, I would say your cap is totally fine.

I also agree with the above-mentioned prevailing wind idea.