Have to say I’m not very excited with upcoming winter season. Wood got a bit wet this summer / fall. Hope it’s dry enough. Plus I’m running an old Vermont Castings Vigilant. Plus my set up is not ideal with the way stove vents into smoke chamber. Not much I can do about that without major changes. Air is a bit still today, and with damper closed I’m seeing too much smoke outside for my liking. Will have to burn only on windiest days. I really want very clean burns for several reasons. Probably should replace the stove. Definitely minimize time with damper closed, and just run in upright mode with small fires. Will have to restock every 3 hours LOL...
Too much smoke
- Thread starter rawlins02
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i run the defiant it's similar to yours. those old stove would crank out the heat when in the horizontal burn but they were not made to run smokeless. way too many ways for smoke to get around the damper so even if you got a nice secondary burn running it will still smoke. if there is more smoke than in updraft mode then you don't have a secondary fire running and will build creosote rather quick. i had to rebuild my stove with gaskets in area's that was not meant to have a gasket and that took almost all the smoke out.
Well, it sure seems wet. Biblical amounts of water. I did not cover my stacks until about 4 weeks ago. Wood is hissing. Isn't burning like it did in past years.
If you live in the mid-Atlantic region, rest assured that you've never had as much rain in fall, and particularly in November, than you've had in > 100 years of record-keeping.
Maybe I'll use the wood to build an arc.
When you say vented into the smoke chamber are you saying it is just run through a pipe that just dumps into the smokechamber of a fireplace?
Yes. Obviously a poor setup. Way it was when I bought the house. I'm mostly running in upright mode this season. Rarely close damper. I can get a hot small fire with dry wood on cold days. I think much of my wood is drier than the splits I've been burning over past few days. And I'm considering having a flue installed, and maybe a new stove.
