Speaking of wood... stoves

[BarnyardEngineering]

Call this, "Sun goes down, fire goes out, Chapter III"

The current wood stove is a Vermont Castings Dutchwest 2461, which is a catalyst stove. I am sick of fighting with it. Every time I think I've found a formula to make it work, it's only a temporary solution. The latest thing it has decided to do is put smoke smell into the house for about 30-45 minutes every time I load it.

The chimney is STILL clean.

Does anyone have recommendations for a reliable, easy to use, consistent, efficient wood stove that can be purchased new?

 

[matthies]

Is the chimney tall enough for a good draw. Got to open the door slowly sometimes to draw the smoke out and get the draw going.

 

[Stephen Newell]

Not seeing the stove close up I can only give you a basic concept. Assuming you have the damper open your not building a hot enough fire when you start it. It needs the heat to pull the smoke up the chimney. Build the fire with scrap boards until you get the stove good and hot before putting logs in. You may also have a down draft issue. The chimney needs to go up a couple feet above the peak of the roof. If not wind may be coming down your roof and putting pressure at the top of the pipe preventing the smoke from coming out. Then the piping going through the roof, is it sufficient for that stove? How dry is the wood you are burning? A lot of times we have green or wet wood which doesn't burn well and have to burn boards with it to keep the heat up.

 

[Dusty MI]

Assuming it is being used in your home.
The home needs a lot if incoming fresh combustion air. Also the smoke pipe needs to inter the side of the chimney about a foot above the bottom of it, so any down draft will go to the bottom and turn around and go back up without going down the smoke pipe.

 

[Welding man]

Nothing compares to an outdoor wood furnace. I have had a Hardy for close to 20 years. All the mess, and the fire is outside. All that comes
into the house is hot water. Set the thermometer at 75 degrees, put wood in it twice a day and enjoy.

 

[acresgreen]

I have heated my house for over 35 years with a wood stove, and have had many different brand names including Vermont Castings. For the
past 15 years I been using a Quadra Fire 3100 stove. Much better stove than any of the other ones. Easy overnight burns, when run properly,
hardly any chimney smoke, no catalist. There design actually combusts smoke in the fire box. Don't know if you can buy I new one, but used
are out there and any parts are readily available. just my 2 cents

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

I found the best way for my Riteway is to let it burn down to just a small bed of embers near bedtime and load it up full. That way it comes up
slowly. If I load it when it's really hot the damper stays closed and it builds up gasses then huffs forcing smoke past the door gaskets, much
worse when the wood is not seasoned enough.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

Thanks guys, but I am done trying to fix this stove. I have been all through this on a wood stove forum to no avail. "Fixes" work for a while, but then inexplicably stop working.

The house has plenty of fresh air infiltration. It is a drafty old farmhouse with only about 1/2 being up to somewhat modern standards. You can see daylight along the ceiling of the wall behind the stove. You can see daylight around the back door.

The chimney extends 5' above the peak of the nearest roof. According to the "experts" on the wood stove forum, it's not tall enough, but there is nothing I can do about that.

The chimney draws just fine. Once a fresh load of wood gets burning it burns HOT and FAST, even with the intake completely closed.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 07:15:28 03/09/23) I found the best way for my Riteway is to let it burn down to just a small bed of embers near bedtime and load it up full. That way it comes up
slowly. If I load it when it's really hot the damper stays closed and it builds up gasses then huffs forcing smoke past the door gaskets, much worse when the wood is not seasoned enough.

The slower mine comes up, the worse the smoke smell is.

Every 3 hours I go out and put 2-3 sticks on the hot bed of coals. Until those new sticks are burning good, which is usually 30-45 minutes, I get smoke smell. For a while I was able to keep it from smelling if I left the bypass door open and let it roar for about 3 minutes. That doesn't work anymore for some reason.

 

[Stephen Newell]

You may be closing the bypass door too much for that stove. Try leaving it cracked a little.

If you are letting the fire burn down to coals before you add wood that could be part of the problem. It's better to add a single log every 20-30 minutes than to let it burn down and then fill it. If the wood isn't really dry it uses the heat from the coals to dry the wood out so that creates more smoke.

If you have recently purchased the stove you might contact the manufacturer and see if they can help you.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 06:52:34 03/09/23) Nothing compares to an outdoor wood furnace. I have had a Hardy for close to 20 years. All the mess, and the fire is outside. All that comes
into the house is hot water. Set the thermometer at 75 degrees, put wood in it twice a day and enjoy.

Except that they use far more wood than a conventional wood stove. You're only loading it twice a day, but each time you load it you're putting in enough wood to run this POS stove for at least two days.

Plus cost. What's it going to cost me to have a complete hot water heating system installed? $25000? This is not my house. It's the estate and sooner or later it is going to get sold. We're only one catastrophe away from that happening.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 07:43:49 03/09/23) You may be closing the bypass door too much for that stove. Try leaving it cracked a little.

If you are letting the fire burn down to coals before you add wood that could be part of the problem. It's better to add a single log every 20-30 minutes than to let it burn down and then fill it. If the wood isn't really dry it uses the heat from the coals to dry the wood out so that creates more smoke.

If you have recently purchased the stove you might contact the manufacturer and see if they can help you.

The bypass is open or closed. It's an over-center mechanism so there is no way to leave it partially open. The instructions state to NEVER leave the bypass partially open.

The stove is over 20 years old. It has been a problem right along, but this smoke smell thing is new.

 

[ss55]

Is natural gas or propane an option? Many/most home buyers do not want to fuss with a wood stove for primary heat. They want something simple and reliable that they can set the thermostat and forget it. A fireplace for ambience or an auxiliary wood stove are always a plus, but wood for primary heat is a liability.

A gas furnace would reduce your work load to care for the estate, might cost less to install than a first class wood stove, and should enhance the value of the house in the eyes of most potential buyers. Leave the old wood stove in place for the next owner to figure out and put in an inexpensive gas stove to get by until the estate sale.

Just a though from outside the box.

 

[Janicholson]

A simple solution is a power draft inducer. They work to solve that specific issue. Jim
one source/type

 

[miangus]

When I was using a wood stove, I would open the draft door and let the fire get going pretty good before firing. This would get the flue system hot and increase draft. The system also needs air to prevent back drafting, so an extremely tight house could cause back drafting. My grandfather's house had a wood/coal furnace in the basement. It was important to open the firing damper along with the ash door to get a good draft going before firing. A little wood smoke makes a house smell nice, not so much with a little coal smoke.

 

[Zachary Hoyt]

I bought a Century 2800 for the new old house and it has been great. It's not a catalytic stove, but it still meets the latest EPA regulations. I didn't want to have to mess with the extra complexity. I also bought a
similar sized 2013 vintage stove for the new workshop building which is a bit under 500 square feet. We've heated a ~1000 square foot house and the workshop fully with wood, and have only burned about 2-
1/2 to 3 cords so far this heating season in the central Adirondacks. They've been trouble free. If you can find a non-catalytic EPA compliant stove I would recommend trying it.

 

[rustred]

smoke smell is due to chimney and draft. once the chimney is getting plugged and you have little draft the smoke will stay in the firebox and
seep out and not exit out the chimney

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 11:24:17 03/09/23) smoke smell is due to chimney and draft. once the chimney is getting plugged and you have little draft the smoke will stay in the firebox and
seep out and not exit out the chimney

Yes, that is the first thing I checked. You don't know how many times I've been out in the woodshed in the middle of the night in 15 degree weather in my underwear running the chimney brush up and down in a panic thinking the chimney was plugged.

It has never been anywhere near plugged, or even that dirty.

 

[Loosehandle]

Joutal, it's Scandinavian and non
catalytic. I've had one 20 years, not cheap
though.

 

[Bobcatz]

(quoted from post at 06:20:33 03/09/23) Call this, "Sun goes down, fire goes out, Chapter III"

The current wood stove is a Vermont Castings Dutchwest 2461, which is a catalyst stove. I am sick of fighting with it. Every time I think I've found a formula to make it work, it's only a temporary solution. The latest thing it has decided to do is put smoke smell into the house for about 30-45 minutes every time I load it.

The chimney is STILL clean.

Does anyone have recommendations for a reliable, easy to use, consistent, efficient wood stove that can be purchased new?

Another thing found out the hard way, My stainless steel chimney made for wood stoves had a band on the cap for a couple of years before I removed it. What a difference with the stove, now I can clean the chimney once a year, before it was every month!
The band was restricting the flow from the stove!