White powder inside wood stove?

[Isaac Carlson]

There is white powder that is coating the inside of our firebox. I don't know what it is. Does anyone else have this? We are burning oak, maple, and elm. Nice hot burns.

 

[stoveliker]

fly ash? Can you post a pic?

 

[Isaac Carlson]

It looks like a fire extinguisher went off in there. It's on every surface. It rubs off and is a dusting thick. Like a thin coat of white flocking. It rubs off the lid when we reload, so I snapped this picture. I can't get close enough to the hole to get a good picture of inside right now.

 

[stoveliker]

Hm. If you burned nothing but proper cordwood, then I do think it has to be flyash. It is fine powder for if it has not been touched, though.

The only other thing I can think of is whether there are ceramic (nonmetal) parts/boards in there? If so, do they still look normal?

 

[Isaac Carlson]

Nothing but cordwood. No materials in the stove except steel and firebrick.

 

[velvetfoot]

What do I know, but I get a small amount of white deposit on the top of my oil boiler cladding. I attribute it, without research, as the heat doing something to the galvanized smoke pipe.

 

[begreen]

Are you using any chimney creosote remover in the stove?

 

[stoveliker]

I was also thinking that if you had some creosote in your firebox, and then had a hot fire, is this burned creosote?

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Not sure how helpful this is, but I sometimes get whitish powder in my pellet stove firebox.

 

[begreen]

I was also thinking that if you had some creosote in your firebox, and then had a hot fire, is this burned creosote?

That looks quite different and will still be black.

 

[stoveliker]

That looks quite different and will still be black.

We should have a database of pics like that... I saw @bholler identify a burnt clump of creosote (from a chimney) from a pic. All those types of things we can see would make a useful thing if collected and identified?

At least I could learn a lot...

 

[BigJ273]

I’ve had that before after a very hot fire. I was told it resembled fly ash. When I looked up inside my liner the inside of it was coated with it. Can’t say I’ve seen it since tho.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

We don't use creosote remover, so we can rule that out. My wife said she had a pretty hot fire this morning that pegged the thermometer, but the white stuff was there before that. I have no idea what the actual fire temps are, but if I crack open the lid during the burn, there are swirling blue/purple/white flames quite often. The top runs about 700* Up to about 900*. This is not a secondary stove and no cat. The flue thermometer reads about 300-350 and we reload around 250.

 

[firefighterjake]

Perhaps Pablo Escobar has been stashing his supply in your stove?

 

[stoveliker]

Talk about money going up the chimney...

 

[Rob711]

Wipe a little on your gums and report back.