Smoke Coming Out of Door

mprov · Post by **mprov** » Sun. Mar. 06, 2011 1:29 pm

I installed my new pocono yesterday and love it.But when it lit the stove there was a little bit of smoke comming out of the door and the door was closed tight.Is this normal? the gaskets all seem to be placed correctly.I can sometimes smell a little bit of sulfer.Is this because the stove is new. Should the door be completly air tight?

MURDOC1 · Post by **MURDOC1** » Sun. Mar. 06, 2011 1:56 pm

Have you checked chimney draft using a manometer???

You will experience 'smoke' when first starting up a NEW stove as the paint is curing, but it doesn't smell like sulfur, has more of a chemical smell to it...

A good test for tightness of doors/gaskets is to close the door on a dollar bill, if you can easily pull out the dollar bill then things aren't so tight, if hard to pull out the bill, then just right!!!

But, remember that having even the tightest doors is NOT a substitute for poor chimney draft... Regardless you must get the gasses out of the stove.... Plus, I know its been warm outside here in S.E. Pa. the last few days along with rain today, that will decrease any draft that you have if you are working with a marginal chimney to begin with...

Uglysquirrel · Post by **Uglysquirrel** » Sun. Mar. 06, 2011 3:01 pm

My experience with my Poke suggests that the welded on rim may not be perfectly flat suggesting a small gap with the gasket when closed. I found this out when starting the stove (with very little draft) that the smoke from the starting bag would "wisp" out of the gap THOUGH once a little draft started after a minute or so there was no smoke. I discussed this with LL and we agree that this extremely small gap is not a problem since the stove box draft should alway be prevalent.

NOW, if you are smelling sulfur near the gap with the stove at running temp, you have a draft problem. Today's temp of 55 F and rain is not condusive for a excellent draft suggesting a shut down. What is your baro set to ?

LL did say that you should pretty much have a .02 min draft in the stove body at temp, they said a small draft hole ~3/16 or so drilled in the side slightly below the ash pan top edge is a good place to drill it though watch out for the angled uprites on the side interiors. If you take a reading and the draft is less than .015- .02 , you may want to shut down . In situations like this, a digital CO detector is advised,as some are capable (personal experience) of indicating a visual PPM well below the alarm level if the correct button is pushed (Kidde KN -COPP-3). Personal experience , I did a really quick vacuming of ash thru the baro and for yucks, checked the PPM...16 ppm...so this model is quite sensitive based on my limited experience.

When you are done taking the stove body draft you can slip a line on line tight fitting bolt in the hole as to not loose draft from the hole.

Are you at a very high altitude? Sometimes the combusion air needs to be lowered via a plate over the blower inlet?

Bee careful !!

Uglysquirrel · Post by **Uglysquirrel** » Sun. Mar. 06, 2011 3:10 pm

mprov wrote:I installed my new pocono yesterday and love it.But when it lit the stove there was a little bit of smoke comming out of the door and the door was closed tight.Is this normal? the gaskets all seem to be placed correctly.I can sometimes smell a little bit of sulfer.Is this because the stove is new. Should the door be completly air tight?

MPROV, your're in eastern , probably a few miles from me , I just left you a PM with my tel #. See the top of the forum page ,you'll see "1 message", click and read.

Matthaus · Post by **Matthaus** » Tue. Mar. 08, 2011 1:41 pm

mprov wrote:I installed my new pocono yesterday and love it.But when it lit the stove there was a little bit of smoke comming out of the door and the door was closed tight.Is this normal? the gaskets all seem to be placed correctly.I can sometimes smell a little bit of sulfer.Is this because the stove is new. Should the door be completly air tight?

The stove is not airtight, there are small leaks here and there, the draft takes care if this. As has been suggested any coal gas smell would be probably draft related. As already stated, when new the stove will "cure" the paint for some period of time which smells slightly but other than that no smell should be present when running. Is the coal wet in the hopper (if you put it in dry and it gets wet) or moisture in the lid? If so this is an indication of insufficient draft, the barometric damper should be fully closed when any Sulpher smell is present, if not you are losing draft and most probably that is the cause of the smell.

As has already been suggested, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE TWO WORKING CO DETECTORS AND BE CAREFUL!

mprov · Post by **mprov** » Thu. Mar. 10, 2011 6:54 pm

Thanks for all the info.No more smoke and no more smells.I wish I started burning coal years ago.

sakrattack · Post by **sakrattack** » Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 6:59 pm

Anyone have any idea how long smoke should be coming off the door? Lit my Pocono tonight, same thing is happening to me. Smoke coming from the bottom of the door., I have a manometer and draft is fine--i have a powervent... and it does smell,, not like sulfur or coal, but just a strange smell. The stove is 4 years old but its been lit for a total of maybe 3 hours, as I've had CO issues in the past but this was due to poor placement of a powervent, and a blocked stove pipe,, I have corrected those 2 things and tonight with the smoke coming from the bottom of the door my 2 CO digital detectors both showed 0,, and Amerigas just filled up my 500 gal propane tank at 3.49 a gallon, so I need to get this issue fixed... also, this smoke only started when the stove was extremely hot,, 700 degrees in front,, but this was due to the coal-trol keeping that feed rate on max for 10 min, and it takes forever for the stove to slow down from that. any ideas? thx

Flyer5 · Post by **Flyer5** » Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 7:12 pm

sakrattack wrote:Anyone have any idea how long smoke should be coming off the door? Lit my Pocono tonight, same thing is happening to me. Smoke coming from the bottom of the door., I have a manometer and draft is fine--i have a powervent... and it does smell,, not like sulfur or coal, but just a strange smell. The stove is 4 years old but its been lit for a total of maybe 3 hours, as I've had CO issues in the past but this was due to poor placement of a powervent, and a blocked stove pipe,, I have corrected those 2 things and tonight with the smoke coming from the bottom of the door my 2 CO digital detectors both showed 0,, and Amerigas just filled up my 500 gal propane tank at 3.49 a gallon, so I need to get this issue fixed... also, this smoke only started when the stove was extremely hot,, 700 degrees in front,, but this was due to the coal-trol keeping that feed rate on max for 10 min, and it takes forever for the stove to slow down from that. any ideas? thx

The stove should be under negative pressure may just still be the paint burning off. I don't used the feed 10 to light the stoves. The best way is to lower your setpoint temp about 10 degrees below the room temp and let the FR get close to 0. If you don't want to wait just unplug the feed motor for a little while till the coal is well caught. Then don't forget to plug it back in.

Oh yea there is no need to crank heavily on the door. Just push the handle over. It just wears the gasket out sooner and cracks the cement holding the gasket on. If you have CO coming out of the stove it is a draft problem.

Post by **Rob R.** » Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 7:17 pm

I have seen this with several EFM boiler installs. When the chimney is cold it is sometimes possible to pressurize the combustion chamber. The solution is to lower the feed and air until the unit comes up to temperature and the draft stabilizes. Once it has been running a few hours you can make your final feed/air/draft adjustments. CO detectors and a draft gauge are required to set it up properly (safely).

sakrattack · Post by **sakrattack** » Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 7:36 pm

thanks guys, yeah , i'm 99% that the draft is fine,, since the manometer says it is and no CO,, I guess I just got to let it burn off. , just puzzling why it only is coming from the bottom of the glass door. Yea flyer, in the past I did crank the door shut,, but recently I read that is not cool.
maybe I should replace the glass and gaskets just for peace of mind., but like you said, its under negative pressure,, and I did the dollar bill test before I lit it up,, it was pretty tight all around...couldn't really pull the bill out.

Flyer5 · Post by **Flyer5** » Mon. Dec. 16, 2013 7:50 pm

sakrattack wrote:thanks guys, yeah , i'm 99% that the draft is fine,, since the manometer says it is and no CO,, I guess I just got to let it burn off. , just puzzling why it only is coming from the bottom of the glass door. Yea flyer, in the past I did crank the door shut,, but recently I read that is not cool.
maybe I should replace the glass and gaskets just for peace of mind., but like you said, its under negative pressure,, and I did the dollar bill test before I lit it up,, it was pretty tight all around...couldn't really pull the bill out.

They will be fine as long as the gasket is not falling out. Clean the glass often and it should be fine as well unless it is already etched.