vent pipe leak discovered.

[crausch]

I have been burning my stove for awhile now, but every now and then the room just seemed to have a smell that I could not tell if it was still a new stove thing or a exhaust leak. I have Simpson Dura vent setup and had everything siliconed very well at every joint including connection to stove collar. I have a smoke/carbon monoxide detector in the room which never went off. At times the odor would seem to burn my eyes.

I just wanted share what I found:
I have a Harman Advance. I took the back panels off to get a better look at the vent pipe-to-stove connection. Even though I thought I had this sealed very well, I figured if I had a leak, this would be where it was. There is a 3 bolt exhaust collar with gasket back there and I had previously posted about finding only two bolts had been tightened from the factotry.

As it turns out it was my 'T' leaking. Once the back panels were off, I immediately noticed that there was a light brown ashy powder streak at the factory connection of the 'T'. This was easy to see on the black colored pipe. When I put my vent together I remember looking inside the 'T' and saw that the 'T' had orange colored silicone at the factory joints. I assumed ( and we all know what that means) I would not have leaks at those points...NOT!

I had the 'T' siliconed very well at all three connectors, at the top, at the stove side, and around the clean out cap on the bottom. Appearently the factory jounts need to be siliconed on the outside as well. Once I did this, all has been good. No more smell, and after being down here in the room all morning, no more eyes burning.

Long story short (and the moral)...don't take anything for granted. If you continue to smell something after your stove has been broke in, double check your vent for leaks no matter how small.

Hey, BTW Happy Black Friday!

 

[Dougsey]

I had to RTV every single joint, seem and rivet on my older Duravent to get it tight.

 

[crausch]

I guess I can chalk this off to experience and I'll know better the next time. It sure is a better feeling knowing that I have eliminated the source of the fumes.

 

[harmanhater]

Please see my post. Click back and look for "help, can't get enough air" i posted how to check for all leaks.

 

[crausch]

becareful... I went back through the thread that you mention. Lots of good suggestions. Your last post on that thread was interesting. My problem was primarily the fumes that I was smelling and thus the discovered leak. I don't seem to have a draft problem as my flame and pellets are burning good. Once I sealed the leak in the 'T', the burn did seem to become a little more fierce which is good.

I don't have the draft levers and adjustments on my stove as I saw mentioned as a way for you to check your draft on your stove. I am curous about the information you shared about basement pressure and should use 4" vent. Is there any articles on the internet that you learned this from? I would would like to check into that logic further. I have read articles in the past on being careful about negative house pressure. I would like to read other sources of information also.

 

[harmanhater]

All I can say is during a full burn, unplug your stove from the outlet. Wait a few minutes and you might see smoke rolling out around your door gasket (replace it), ash door (replace it), hopper gasket (replace it. This method only works if you disconnect your vertical piping, and use only straight out pipe (no vertical draft). If you have vertical piping inside your house this method won't work (obviously).As far as studies on negative house pressure (all houses with a basement have natural negative pressure). That is why outside air and or larger piping is needed. Check (google) Humidex (dehumidifiers from Canada). They could explain negative pressure better than I could.

 

[harmanhater]

I am running a Harman P-68. Vertical piping can fool you into thinking you don't have a leak when indeed you do. Please disconnect vertical, unplug elec. during full burn, look EVERYWHERE for smoke around the stove.

 

[Lobstah]

My stove is not sealed by design. The ash collector simply slides into place under the pellet pot. There are no gaskets on the ash collector of any kind.
When the ash trap is "closed"...there is approx. 1/4" gap left open under the pellet pot.

So I don't believe your test would work on my stove.

Jim

 

[Alan]

I've been fighting a smoke leak on my Harmon Advance, working with my installer. We were able to see smoke (either at startup or with the smoke test pellets) leaking out of various Duravent tees & elbows. Finally we swapped out Duravent for Excel & cannot see any trace of smoke. (I've got a 21 foot vertical run of 4 inch stove pipe, so I can't try the shut-down test with horizontal run described in this thread.)

I STILL HAVE A SMOKE SMELL THAT BUILDS UP SLOWLY (OVER AN HOUR OR SO) IN THE ROOM, MOST NOTICABLY AT HIGH HEAT SETTINGS.

With the back panels off, I've sniffed everywhere on the stove to try to find the source -- there is no obvious source I can locate. I've temproraally tried running outside combustion air (it didn't change anything) to reduced air movement in the back of the stove in the hope it would help me to isolate the source. I've tried cracking open the ash removal pan while the stove is on, & no smell from there.

If there is one place where there might be a slightly stronger odor, its next to the combustion motor. Since the combustion fan blade is moving all the smelly stuff out the system, I'm wondering if it's possible that the bearing assembly that connects the external combustion motor to the combustion fan blade could be leaking? Is it possible that the combustion motor is the source of the problem?

Thanks,

--Alan

PS: I'm giving this message it's own thread as well under a different title to try to gather inputs from folks not following this thread.