Supreme Opus Smoke Problem

[SimonB]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for suggestions on the Supreme Opus double sided stove. It is a beautiful unit, but no matter what I've tried it smokes every time the door is opened to reload. It just doesn't seem to draft very efficiently.

Originally I had it installed in the very center of a small (1300sf) not airtight 2-story house. It was vented through a straight 6" double wall stovepipe connecting to the 6" insulated Selkirk chimney. The double wall pipe is about 12ft long (because the stove was installed in the full 2 story opening of the stairwell) followed by 11ft of insulated chimney that protrudes 5ft above the peak of the roof.

I've tried opening the door at different points of the burn cycle, opening very slowly, even tried reloading with the patio doors wide open and smoke still escapes into the room. I eventually had to replace it with my Jotul model F3, and older model 8 at my wife's insistence. I have no problem with either of those woodstoves. I can even burn them with the door wide open and no smoke escapes.

After replacing it I moved it into my workshop which is also 2 story, but only has 5ft of double wall pipe into 15ft of insulated chimney again straight up (no bends). Still the smoke escapes

Any other suggestions much appreciated.

Thanks, Simon

 

[webbie]

My guess is somewhat defective design of the unit. A 6" flue seems too small for something with that door opening size and design.....

Your chimney height is MORE than enough for most every woodstove made. I would guess that the fireplace works well when closed?

 

[webby3650]

Isn't that a zero clearance fireplace rather than a stove? Meaning its intended to have class A chimney attached to it, not connector pipe? I've installed 1 or 2 Supremes and I don't remember seeing any provision that allows stovepipe instead of chimney to be attached to it.

 

[webbie]

Isn't that a zero clearance fireplace rather than a stove? Meaning its intended to have class A chimney attached to it, not connector pipe? I've installed 1 or 2 Supremes and I don't remember seeing any provision that allows stovepipe instead of chimney to be attached to it.

That seems to be correct - but even if so, that would not cause the draft problem mentioned. The manual even says it can be connected to a masonry chimney with a full 6" single wall liner.....

So although the manual and testing do not cover a free standing installation, a straight up chimney consisting of semi-insulated double and then fully insulated of 20+ feet should certainly draft well (IMHO)....

"CONNECTION TO A MASONRY CHIMNEY

The OPUS fireplace can be connected to a masonry chimney. The masonry chimney must
comply with the national and local building codes.
A stainless steel liner of 6 in. diameter, complying with the standard ULC-S635-M2000 in
Canada or UL-1777 in the US, must be installed in the chimney. The liner must be continuous
and its installation must comply with the manufacturer’s instructions. "

In short, the installation(s) do not comply with any found in the manual - however, I highly doubt that is the cause of the excess smoking. The 5 ft of interior-type double seems unlike to cool the smoke much, especially since the entire chimney(s) were much higher than the 15 ft (including fireplace height) specified in the manual.

 

[begreen]

Could just be a crappy design? I get wary when anything calls itself Supreme.

 

[webby3650]

Could just be a crappy design? I get wary when anything calls itself Supreme.

They seem to have a pretty advanced design actually.
It seemed to be very well made, and well thought out. Smoking out is something I haven't heard of until now. The 6" flue seems to be undersized, but other high eff ZC's are following suit. The new FPX 44 will use a 6" class A pipe. I feel like a lot of these new designs will work with a 6" flue, but would work better on an 8" flue. They just can't get the high numbers on the testing and the savings on a 6" flue is appealing to a consumer.
I have short flues, several have smoked out on my 6" flue, but when I moved them to my 8" flue they worked great! Both are the same height, but are at the minimum for the stove.

 

[webbie]

All speculation, but the double sided design leaves them less room to work with trying to get the smoke back from the door opening....that is, with a single sided unit you can attempt to work with the smoke chamber to sweep the front, while with 2 sides you have a harder situation....

I wonder if the test lab cares about smoking out the door?

It's not hard and fast, but most fireplace openings can be about 8X the sq in. of the flue. So a 6" flue would mean about 220 sq. in. of door opening.

 

[SimonB]

Lots of good discussion. As webby noted it is a zero clearance fireplace, and when discussing with the company they insist that because of that I need to install it with insulated chimney directly from the top of the fireplace; no stovepipe. I personally can't see how that is going to make much of a difference to the draft, and am having a hard time convincing myself to spend another $400 dollars on insulated chimney to find out that it is a design issue. At that point I'm stuck with a smoky stove and a bunch of expensive stovepipe!

My thoughts on it is that the door opening is simply too large for a 6" pipe. Going from memory the door is somewhere around 18"x24" or an area of 432sqin. Using the rule of thumb above suggests that a 8" flue would be required, but it is designed and recommended to be installed with a 6" flue.

I may still spend the money and try the 6" full length insulated chimney; as I need to replace (according to the insurance company) the old square insulated chimney in my garage.

Btw; I was using it to heat the garage this weekend and showing my father how bad it is. I couldn't open it more than a few inches before smoke started billowing out the opening. Meanwhile my 30 yr old Jotul 8 can be run in the same location with the door wide open at any point in the burn cycle with virtually no smoke escaping.

 

[webbie]

Right - I think it's fairly unlikely that replacing a section of chimney is going to fix that!

The door opening is often reduced by metal hanging down inside the stove - that is, the opening may be much smaller than what you said. But the proof is in the pudding. Based on my 35 years of industry experience, I'd say your two setups should not be smoking that easily! The company can't really fix anything since nothing is broken - any modification of the unit would void the listing.

I suppose it is what it is...in your case. Perhaps others will later chime in with their experiences so we can see what's up.

If I were the company, though, I'd want to know what is going on....just for my own sake.

Are there any baffles or other assemblies up inside the unit which could have become dislodged, etc?

 

[SimonB]

Your right that the door opening is reduced substantially on the inside. I measured it last night and it is actually 12x22 to the inside of the metal pieces hanging down and coming in from the sides. That gets the opening pretty close to the rule of thumb size.

I'm also including a picture of the internal baffles that the air has to flow around to get up the chimney. I checked everything as far as I could see/reach without tearing it apart and everything seems solid.