The chimney is clean.

BarnyardEngineering

Well-known Member
Location
Rochester, NY
Why? Because I know that what half of you will ask/recommend even though I will say it repeatedly throughout this post.

The chimney is clean.

So, why won't my wood stove burn at night? Sun goes down, fire goes out. Can't keep it burning.

Burns fine during the day. Maintains a nice bed of hot coals. Just add wood every 2-4 hours.

I'm doing the exact same thing at night, but it won't burn. Air intake is wide open. Wood is dry. Stove is just about out in 4 hours.

The chimney is clean.

Sun comes up in the morning, stove starts burning again.

The stove is a Vermont Castings Dutchwest. The catalyst is brand new. Old one had disintegrated.

I'm new to this wood stove thing, living in my parents house guarding the farm after they both passed recently. There's an oil furnace but it only keeps the place warm while it's running. 10 minutes after it shuts off you're freezing again, and it costs a fortune to run.

And before you ask, the chimney is clean. I just checked it for the 34th time.
 
Oh my, you have opened up a lot of memories for me, especially chimney and stovepipe fires.
Your chimney is clean but it probably needs a bit of an extension to make it draw.
Yeh, I know, it draws in the daytime, sun is out, wind currents are different.
Evening creates different current. How tall is the chimney. does it protrude above the roofline?
It is not the cleanliness of a chimney that makes it draw (helps though) lots of factors, mostly
location of house and height of chimney. A small fan could help create an updraft to keep it working.
stay safe and warm
Kris
 
You say that the fire is just about out in 4 hours at nite, do you mean the stove still has wood, but stopped burning, or do you mean the wood is all gone? If it still
has wood, but has gone out, I don't know. If the wood is gone after 4 hours, the answer is to get up every 4 hours and fire up if you want the fire to go all night. It
may be that you need a bigger stove. We heat a big old farmhouse in Maine, probably 3500 SF, 200,000 btu wood fired boiler that I fire up about 3 times a day. That SF
does not include the boiler room or woodshed
 
30 inches above the highest point of the roof (or more) is needed to avoid roof caused down drafts. outside air supply to the air intake can increase the efficiency by 30 to 50 %,
especially in rooms away from the stove. The look of the ashes tells a story. Grey dry papery ash means full burn of volatiles. lumps and black carbon means not a full burn. In
a banked fire the supply might be 1/2 open or less to keep it lit longer, but more smoke and less complete combustion. The type of wood and its growth rate is also a dramatic
Pine, Aspen, and less dense woods burn well but produce little lasting fire. Dense woods Ash, oak, Hickory, Maple, all last longer. Jim
 
(quoted from post at 10:33:57 11/15/21) Is there a chimney cap?

No cap. After the chimney fire Dad lined it with stainless which came with a cap but the cap would plug with creosote even if the rest of the chimney was clean as a whistle. He finally took the cap off and threw it away.
 
(quoted from post at 10:38:15 11/15/21) You say that the fire is just about out in 4 hours at nite, do you mean the stove still has wood, but stopped burning, or do you mean the wood is all gone? If it still
has wood, but has gone out, I don't know. If the wood is gone after 4 hours, the answer is to get up every 4 hours and fire up if you want the fire to go all night. It
may be that you need a bigger stove. We heat a big old farmhouse in Maine, probably 3500 SF, 200,000 btu wood fired boiler that I fire up about 3 times a day. That SF
does not include the boiler room or woodshed

The fire slowly goes out. It does not burn the wood in the stove. The stick(s) I put in at 11 are still there at 3AM. Does not matter how many.

When it's burning this stove goes 3 hours whether there is one stick or it's stoked full.
 
(quoted from post at 10:41:07 11/15/21)

What air intake? Is there a damper in the flue pipe?

There are two flapper things on the front of the stove that are controlled by a lever to let air in.

It is a sealed unit with a catalyst, no damper in the flue pipe.
 
I've had a stainless steel cap on mine and like you say it got a lot of creosote on it. Once in a while I took it down, put it on
the ground upside down, poured a little used motor oil in it and stuffed newspaper in it and lit it. After the gunk was burned off
and it cooled I put it back on.
 
Sounds like the stove worked for your parents. If the chimney goes straight up I don't see why it doesn't draw air at night. Is the house shut up too
tight at night, maybe open a window a small amount. Contact the manufacture see if they can help. My stove pipe goes up 2 ft, then horizontal 3 ft, then
up 12 ft, and works fine all night. Stan
 
(quoted from post at 10:56:28 11/15/21) I've burned wood for decades- there has to be more to your story. It doesn't make sense.

I haven't, and I agree, it doesn't make sense. That's why I'm asking.

Put wood in. Sun goes down. Fire goes out. Don't know what else to tell you.
 
(quoted from post at 11:01:34 11/15/21) I've had a stainless steel cap on mine and like you say it got a lot of creosote on it. Once in a while I took it down, put it on
the ground upside down, poured a little used motor oil in it and stuffed newspaper in it and lit it. After the gunk was burned off
and it cooled I put it back on.

He tried cleaning it but it's a pain to get to the chimney up 20' in the air, and cleaning it only lasted a few days. He had no business being on the roof in the first place let alone up there every 3-4 days to clean the stupid cap.
 
When you start a fire and open the drafts it should 'roar' and the pipe temperature up to about 600 to 700 if the stove is drawing air right.Also the hotter the chimney gets the better the fire should burn.
 


Vermont castings is an excellent brand. They probably have a help hotline. IS there any opening in the basement that could be letting air in and reducing the draft? Does the flue pipe go direct horizontally int the chimney or is it an insert that has the pipe going up into the chimney?
 
My neighbor has a Char Master with an electric thermostat
damper. My brother has some new fangle damper stove. Im
not impressed. I grew up in a house that burnt strictly wood. I
continue to burn wood. Ive noticed a tendency that the
thermostat damper shuts down and chokes out fire. The
neighbor used a steel bar to prevent the damper from closing
to start his fires. His chimney has more creosote than mine
does. Is it possible your folks were cheating the damper to
promote the flame?
 
How tall and what is the chimney out side made of. A chimney need to stay warm to draw right. Could it be the top of chimney cools down after sun set and the draw stops being good.
 
(quoted from post at 11:07:55 11/15/21) When you start a fire and open the drafts it should 'roar' and the pipe temperature up to about 600 to 700 if the stove is drawing air right.Also the hotter the chimney gets the better the fire should burn.

It will only "roar" if I open the catalyst bypass and let it vent directly into the chimney AND open the ash door on the bottom.
 
(quoted from post at 11:12:18 11/15/21) My neighbor has a Char Master with an electric thermostat
damper. My brother has some new fangle damper stove. Im
not impressed. I grew up in a house that burnt strictly wood. I
continue to burn wood. Ive noticed a tendency that the
thermostat damper shuts down and chokes out fire. The
neighbor used a steel bar to prevent the damper from closing
to start his fires. His chimney has more creosote than mine
does. Is it possible your folks were cheating the damper to
promote the flame?

There is no damper or thermostat or electric anything.

It has a catalyst, and you're either running it bypassed directly to the chimney or through the catalyst. There is no in between. With the bypass open all the heat and flame shoot straight up the chimney.

The only thing to control the air on this is a couple of small ports on the front with "flippy doors." Which I have wide open all the time, as closing them chokes the fire down even more.
 
(quoted from post at 11:20:41 11/15/21) Is your chimney (flue) on the east side of the building? Does it extend above the highest point of the roof?

It's on the South side of the building, and it extends a good 6' above the peak of the highest adjoining roof.

I know this because when Dad would climb up there to clean the chimney, the platform he stood on was even with the peak of the roof and the top of the chimney was just over his head.
 
Are you running it through the catylist at night? Maybe the night air is cooling the
pipe & chimney above it too much & the draft stops?
 
I just can't imagine that the sunshine has anything to do with it. You have something else going on. Just coincidence that it won't work at night. Does it work on a cloudy day?
 
(quoted from post at 11:45:36 11/15/21) Are you running it through the catylist at night? Maybe the night air is cooling the
pipe & chimney above it too much & the draft stops?

You can only have it bypassed when you're loading the stove. If you leave it bypassed it will burn through all the wood in the stove in 10 minutes and send all the heat straight up the chimney.
 
My neighbor had a chimney cleanout without a door on it, and it caused all kind of odd problems for him, but the most noticeable problem was smoking into the room when he loaded the stove with wood. I made a nice cleanout door for him and it acted like a totally different stove. You didn't mention excessive smoke, so it must be something else.

When I was a teenager, a friend had a small garage that we'd use when we needed to work on our cars in the winter. The chimney would not draw until someone climbed on the roof and held a bundle of flaming newspapers over the chimney. Once we got a little heat to go up the chimney the stove worked perfectly, but if the fire went out overnight you had to do it all over again. You didn't mention excessive smoke, so it must be something else.

I've heated with wood for 45 years and have never experienced anything like you're talking about. Let us know how you fix the problem.
 
First, if you have a cap on the chimney, take it off and toss it in front of the first tractor trailer to drive by. If he doesn't flatten it into scrap the first time, ask him to back over it a couple of more times. Then try your fire again and see what happens and go from there.
 
You didn't mention excessive smoke, so it must be something else.

I've heated with wood for 45 years and have never experienced anything like you're talking about. Let us know how you fix the problem.

The catalyst really cleans up the exhaust so there is barely any smoke coming out the chimney when it's burning well.

Right now I'm stuck in a rut. All I can think to do is check the chimney, put wood in, and cuss at it as the embers slowly dim as the evening progresses no matter what I do.

I can get it to burst into flames if I open the ash door and let more air in, but as soon as I close the ash door the flames go out and the embers dim.
 
I am not an expert, but my Vermont Soapstone stove with catalytic converter working with a SS chimney (about 20ft) and a 4" air duct from the outside works very well.

It sure sounds like you have a well sealed house and something changes in the evening to close up the house tightly, not allowing enough air into the room, like a door being shut for the night.

That opening the ash door and it takes off burning again is the clue to letting more air into the burn. I don't think the catalytic converter is the problem, although it might need a little bit more draft. Those things sure do cut down on stinking smoke outside and really produce a lot more heat for the wood put in. I never have seen any wood burning stove burn for more than 3-4 hours and that is why old timers used some coal to last all night and they had to deal with chimney soot due to smoldering
type of fires. Leo
 
IaLeo,

If something is sealing up the house at sundown it's magical, because I don't do a single thing to change the house. It's an old house. Half the walls don't have insulation in them. Half the windows are old and leaky.

Also it's that the stove GOES OUT. It does not burn the wood that's in it.

During the day it runs about 3 hours on a couple of sticks of wood, and I'm fine with that. However, it DOES NOT BURN AT NIGHT. The flames die out. The embers go cold. The wood I put in just sits there.
 
Boy, this is an intriguing problem!
1. the fire goes out, but will revive (if in time) when ash door is opened. Which acts like air starvation even though the air inlets are open. HMMM.
2. some thing is not working as designed if you have to open the ash door to get enough air, possibly some inner air ductwork that normally feeds air to the fire. But why would it work sometime (daytime) and not at night???
3. is there an electric controlled damper somewhere (I know you would know if there was...just puzzling this out) that gets turned off with the lights...but that should restore draft if you turned the lights back on to check on the fire!
4. if the flue is all metal and mostly outdoors, I could see the damper, colder night air chilling the chimney, discouraging draft, but you have indicated that the metal flue was a liner in some older construction...hmmm.
5. is there any other flue-using appliance connected into this flue?
Thanks for a fun puzzle that should be simple physics in operation! Best of luck solving this and I hope you share what the solution is, if any. Leo in NE Iowa burning junk wood from around an old farmstead...processing it for the retirement exercise.
 
My best guess is that you have a hole in the chimney allowing it draft air without pulling it through the stove,I
would start looking in the attic,if its not there go the basement or base of the chimney.
 
I had a sluggish draft problem on a simple steel stove with a viewing window in the feed door. The inlet air drawn from somewhere under the stove was routed in a passage up through the inside back and under the top with several small outlet holes aimed at the inside of window in the door to "wash" the window and keep it cleaner longer. Sorta worked on the cleanliness but the holes got carbon clogged and eventually would draw only with the door ajar.
 
ok here u go... i was not talking through my flue. found out they are not what they were hipped up to be. if it was your parents stove then this might apply. post a pic of your stove.
cvphoto108114.jpg


cvphoto108115.jpg
 
Interesting problem. From what I've read, something changes at night fall that we haven't captured.

1) Same source of wood day or night?

2) Is the chimney shared with something else?

3) Is the temperature of the stove set the same day and night?

4) Twas referenced earlier, but is there another access to the chimney (like a clean out) that creates an air leak?

5) Catalyst stoves often have a thermometer to tell when its hot enough to engage the catalyst. What does this thermometer
telling us?

It was referenced that there is a creosote problem with the chimney & top. Seems these catalyst stoves, burning properly,
are nearly clean.

Keep us all posted on what you find.....
 
I read the replies. Now I'm not an expert but here is my take. chimney is on the south
side. as the sun comes up, the chimney heats up causing more draft. Not sure what type of
chimney it is but it Must be insulated all the way to the top. If it has an insert in it my
guess is that cold air is getting in-between the insert and original chimney. This makes it
get cold and you loose your draft.

Now you say if you open the ash drawer the fire will take off and burn till it's gone?
That tells me that the problem is with the air intake. But you mentioned 2 things you did
not just open the ash tray. something about not running it through the catalyst but just
strait up into chimney. I would open ash tray and if it works then there is something wrong
with your auto damper. I think it may be hooked up in reverse, Sun comes up and shines on
it heating it up and now it is open. sun goes down and cools off and closes it. Not sure
what type of stove or damper control you have but if it works with ash drawer open then it
is your damper closing when cold instead of when hot.

Chimney in the attic must also be insulated well or when the sun goes down there is to much
cold in the attic and cools the chimney and same problem. If you are opening the catalyst
and it burns it is because it takes more draft to draw through the catalyst than strait up
a chimney.

I would start with the air intake location and find out for sure it is open into the stove
when evening comes. because you say it burns when ash tray open tells me it is only the
intake and not your house being sealed or a cold chimney.
good luck and let us know what you find.
 
Adjust catalyst bypass to get temperature hot enough that catalyst stays at operating temp. If catalyst isn't glowing it will soot
up and restrict draft and smother fire.
 
(quoted from post at 03:30:06 11/16/21) Adjust catalyst bypass to get temperature hot enough that catalyst stays at operating temp. If catalyst isn't glowing it will soot
up and restrict draft and smother fire.

There is no adjustment on the bypass. It is either open or closed.

Just as an update, the sun was going down as I wrote my last reply yesterday. I had just put two sticks of wood in the stove on top of a bed of glowing red-hot coals, expecting it to continue burning as it had all day long.

When I checked in on the stove about 30 minutes later it was dark. The wood I put in, untouched, cold. I did nothing different than I had every 2 hours all day long, open the bypass, open the door, put wood in, close the door, close the bypass, walk away.
 
(quoted from post at 17:50:55 11/15/21) ok here u go... i was not talking through my flue. found out they are not what they were hipped up to be. if it was your parents stove then this might apply. post a pic of your stove.

Nah this is a fairly new stove. Late 1990's at the oldest. I'm thinking early 2000's. A relatively modern Vermont Castings not one of the early prototypes described in this history.

The parts support is amazing. You can get any cast part, any bolt, any nut, OEM from the manufacturer.

If I continue to live here I'm putting in geothermal.
 
Now for the question, no one has asked. Yes I under stand the chimney is clean, but was the liner insulated when it was installed ? IMHO the sun warms the surrounding concrete mass of the old chimney and warms the liner. As the sun goes down so does the temperature of the liner inside the chimney reducing the draft. If you think about it these modern stoves send way less heat up the chimney, hence the flue doesn't stay warm enough to produce the draft required to maintain the fire.
 


So I understand that you aren't doing anything different at all? You aren't altering the draft control at night different than you run it during the day? You should be able to feel the draft over your fingers if you put them near the air intake. If not, try puffing some baby powder near the intake and see if it floats into the intake. If you have no draft into the stove at night, whatever causes it, that is your issue. It could be you just live in a spot where the heavier, cold air produced after the sun sets tends to settle. It's not common, but it's not unheard of either. There are forced draft fans for stubborn chimneys, or at least there used to be. You might also try propping the ash door open a little with a matchstick or something like that for a little extra draft.
 
Reading through the info you provided in your replies a few things came to mind.

-You said the chimney cap was removed as it was getting plugged up.
This to me indicates the stove is either being run too cool or the wood although dry may be heavy with sap/tar.

I had a load of pine years ago that was split and dried 2 years but still caused horrible problems with creosote build up in the chimney and especially in the cap.
Switched to different wood and the problem went away.

-You said the chimney is clean, how about the stove itself?
My stove will hold about 10 gallons of ash, when it is near full it will not burn right. Flow gets restricted to the re-burner and air travel through passages that are designed to keep the window clean don't work right.

-When you open your bypass then add wood you are supposed to leave it open for 10-15 minutes so the added wood gets burning good before you close the bypass.

-I make it a point to have the stove rip roaring hot for a good hour at least once a day when I am using it otherwise turning it down at night creates a lot of build up.

I check and clean my chimney on a regular basis, since I have started doing the hot burns I can go all winter with zero buildup in the pipes.

It only takes me 5 minutes to run the brush and rods up my chimney followed by shinning a spot light up it to check it.

Once you are used to a stove you can usually tell right away when something needs attention based on how it burns, how hot it gets, how the ashes look etc.
Just something to get used to.

Last thought you said the chimney is clean, how about the pipes leading from the stove to the chimney stack?
Is it straight up and away or are there elbows in the installation?
 
Is your house at the bottom of a long steep hill where the cold air pools as it flows off the hillside? Does your smoke settle in around the house once the sun goes down? If either of these things are true you may have to install a fresh air draft somewhere to bolster the natural draw of the stove and chimney during the cool air phenomenon. steve
 

Find a manometer and check the house.

At night the doors and windows are closed for long periods.

Maybe leave a window open a couple inches to test if you do not have the correct meters.

The stove needs a bunch of air and you cannot get it from a
vacuum.

The code call for outside combustion air for all fired appliances.
 
We have a wood stove with a catalyst with bypass too.

Things that come to mind...

Catalyst clogging. This can happen quickly if less than dry wood is burned.

Damper closed to much, essentially choking out the fire.

Less than ideal wood. A catalyst stove needs good dry firewood. Is your wood dry?

Your catalyst may be worn out, ie the coatings on it that make it work effectively are no longer good. Burning colored paper can accelerate this.
 
Bill VA,

Catalyst is brand new.

There is no damper. As I recall the installation said DO NOT INSTALL A DAMPER.

As long as the swear filter thinks any of this is okay, maybe it will post.
 
(quoted from post at 16:17:37 11/16/21)
Find a manometer and check the house.

At night the doors and windows are closed for long periods.

Maybe leave a window open a couple inches to test if you do not have the correct meters.

The stove needs a bunch of air and you cannot get it from a
vacuum.

The code call for outside combustion air for all fired appliances.

During the day the doors and windows are closed for equally long periods. The house has plenty of leaks for ventilation.

You would think that if the stove were running out of combustion air, that *I* would be running out of combustion air too. Since I'm still here, still fighting with the stove, I don't think that is the case. Hypoxia should have overcome me long before I started this thread.
 
BarnyardEngineering: I have been following this thread with keen interest as many have and would love to be of assistance if possible. In reading over all of the questions and your answers again, I believe that your issue is with the chimney since the only thing that seems to change is the conditions outside the home.

A couple more questions to assist if you don't mind.

Has the woodstove behaved this way since you started burning or did it develop as the weather got cooler? Has it gotten worse as the temperatures got lower over night?

From your description i gather you have a masonry chimney with a flexible stainless flue liner in it. Is that liner sealed top and bottom? Is the masonry chimney relatively air tight or does air freely infiltrate it?

I was concerned that you mentioned your father had to remove the chimney cap because of creosote build up: properly dried wood burning hot should not create creosote. The only times I have seen excessive creosote build up in my 20+ years as a rural firefighter was when people burned green wood too cold. The worst case was when a guy had a homemade stove and flue which included a water heater around the chimney in the attic space. He would shut the stove right down at night, the result was cooled combustion gases from a low fire being cooled even more by the water jacket on the chimney, causing creosote build up. I'm postulating that your chimney configuration is allowing the flue to cool too much at night causing poor draft; maybe enough to impact your combustion quality.

What species of wood are you burning and how long has it been seasoned? Likely not the issue since it burns well during the day but its a point of interest for me.

I don't know if you have already done it, but I'm a big proponent of reading the manual. I'm not sure which model stove you have, but I managed to find a pdf online for some of the Dutchwest stove models.

https://woodstoves.net/documents/Vermont-Castings/Dutchwest-2460-61-62-manual.pdf

It has a relatively good section on stove controls, use, and maintenance. Maybe it will be of assistance.
 
BarnyardEngineering: I have been following this thread with keen interest as many have and would love to be of assistance if possible. In reading over all of the questions and your answers again, I believe that your issue is with the chimney since the only thing that seems to change is the conditions outside the home.

A couple more questions to assist if you don't mind.

Has the woodstove behaved this way since you started burning or did it develop as the weather got cooler? Has it gotten worse as the temperatures got lower over night?

From your description i gather you have a masonry chimney with a flexible stainless flue liner in it. Is that liner sealed top and bottom? Is the masonry chimney relatively air tight or does air freely infiltrate it?

I was concerned that you mentioned your father had to remove the chimney cap because of creosote build up: properly dried wood burning hot should not create creosote. The only times I have seen excessive creosote build up in my 20+ years as a rural firefighter was when people burned green wood too cold. The worst case was when a guy had a homemade stove and flue which included a water heater around the chimney in the attic space. He would shut the stove right down at night, the result was cooled combustion gases from a low fire being cooled even more by the water jacket on the chimney, causing creosote build up. I'm postulating that your chimney configuration is allowing the flue to cool too much at night causing poor draft; maybe enough to impact your combustion quality.

What species of wood are you burning and how long has it been seasoned? Likely not the issue since it burns well during the day but its a point of interest for me.

I don't know if you have already done it, but I'm a big proponent of reading the manual. I'm not sure which model stove you have, but I managed to find a pdf online for some of the Dutchwest stove models.

https://woodstoves.net/documents/Vermont-Castings/Dutchwest-2460-61-62-manual.pdf

It has a relatively good section on stove controls, use, and maintenance. Maybe it will be of assistance.
 
HappyJack,

The woodstove has behaved this way all along. Exception being last night when it got a burr in its britches and ROARED for hours even though the stove was shut up tight.

To be clear, the ONLY place creosote built up was on the cap. It would build up to the point of virtually plugging the chimney. The rest of the chimney was always remarkably clean and free of buildup.

Not a flexible stainless liner, a rigid one. We put it in after a chimney fire. I believe it is double walled and insulated. It was some special high end high performance state of the art deal at the time.

Wood is all ash, maple, cherry. Some of it is dead wood I cut up this fall, been standing dead for years, the rest are tops that have been down for 3-4 years which we cut up last year.

The wood is what the wood is this year, nothing I can do about it. Dad was doing most of the wood cutting and he really never got more than the current year's supply cut. He did the best he could given his physical condition.

I tried to cut a little extra this year, so I'll have at least a spreader load that has had a year to season.

This post was edited by BarnyardEngineering on 11/18/2021 at 06:53 am.
 

Thanks for answering.

At this point I'm stumped. It sounds like you are doing everything right. I wouldn't expect too much creosote from those species of wood. My only suggestion at this point is experimentation.

Sorry I couldn't be more help. If I were in the neighbourhood I would bring over some beverages and snacks and run the experiments with you.
 
I did run one experiment this morning...

I gave Determined's idea of leaving the bypass door open for 10 minutes a try. Not going to do that again.

It wasn't "roaring" too much but apparently it got so hot that the bypass door didn't want to close. The handle would not move at first, and it is always very easy to move. I had to fiddle with it for a worrying amount of time to get it to close.
 


Determined has it right. If you were to remove your "catalyst" you would probably find it pretty well blocked. A non-maintained improperly working bypass damper is not a reason to burn your stove improperly. If you are not going to do it right, don't use it!!
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top