Smoke Coming From Stove

I always use great big pieces. Maybe the combo of the house vacumm then the gas build up. Idk

I'm tending to agree with the Rev. All other obvious causes have been eliminated, and his reasoning makes sense with the symptoms. Light an incense and follow the stream, see where it goes. You might find you have a channel leading up to the roof/attic. Unless a blockage has been over looked, more on that below.

McGiever is a walking encyclopedia, and is very good at diagnosing problems. Sometimes posts are misinterpreted, sometimes its hard to put into words exactly what is meant.

If I understand correctly, the smoke never regained a path up the chimney the night of the incident. Is that correct. I also understand that the next day you had a successful burn with wood. Here's my thoughts. I think you could have had a temporary blockage. With that, its possible that a section of soot and rust on the flue pipe fell and hung in place till you tapped on the pipe, dislodging it. When I reinstalled my pipes this year, I tapped them first and saw big sections of rust only a few hundredths of an inch thick (surface rust) come out the bottom end. I really can't see any other cause based on all the information that's been provided so far.

A person can be a Brain surgeon and still be a A hole and a Smart A

Jared, in defense of McGiever.... I have watched him painstakingly walk another member thru his install centimeter by centimeter,even when others walked away. When you are faced with a frustrating issue like this it is easy to get upset with someone who is trying your patience by continually posting new tidbits for you to think about for resolving the issue. He is right ,the clean out door should be sealed tight for max draft. Keep It Sensible Simple, start with the little basic things & move towards the more difficult & complex issues.We are all trying to help you,we ain't going to beat it into you tho. We can all just as easily walk away & leave you to suffer alone, BUT.... it will bring us all a bit of happiness to help you resolve whatever this issue is so that you can get back to being warm,happy with life & happy with your coal burner. Following your last post consider me....

Jared43758 wrote:A person can be a Brain surgeon and still be a A hole and a Smart A

Just trying to stay objective Anyways, have you put any thought into the temporary blockage hypothesis?

Edit - clarified a possible misinterpretation..

Lightning wrote:

Jared43758 wrote:A person can be a Brain surgeon and still be a A hole and a Smart A

I know, I know... Just trying to stay objective. Anyways, have you put any thought into the temporary blockage hypothesis?

Maybe. But where did it go??

Also, don't forget about the sand. Get at least 150 - 200 pounds. If you have an emergency, shovel it into the stove as fast as you can. It will smother it quickly and safely without discharging steam like the hosing did, but you'll have a big clean out job on your hands when its over.

In the pic the bottom of the pipe is the elbow. I can see it from inside the stove

As I look into the pipe in the picture, does the pipe turn upward?

Oops just saw your next post.

Jared43758 wrote:A person can be a Brain surgeon and still be a A hole and a Smart A

I don't see that Mac was being either. We all have our own styles of helping, some are gentle, some are toe stepping (you out there Fred ? ). Mac's one of the good guys always willing to help. And, we're trying to work on his sense of humor!

I realize this is extremely frustrating for you not knowing if you can safely keep your family warm with winter coming on. Been there and had the dirty looks from cold family members more than once. We're all here trying to help you get back to were your were - safely heating with coal .

So, lets all take a deep breath and start over.

I agree that next time it turns cold try seeing where the air currents are going and how strong are they. I use a piece of smoldering cotton string, but the incense will work just as well. And the family will probably like the smell better.

The direction and how fast that little stream of smoke moves will tell you a lot that you can not see. It will steer you right to where the air is going. And it will show air movement that you likely can't feel, but that could have enough volume to cause your chimney to reverse flow.

With chimney system clear reloading time is when the chimney system's draft strength was it's lowest after reloading. With cold outdoor weather, that's the time it most likely will reverse as the house stack affect will likewise get stronger and the outdoor chimney is getting colder. Sorta like a perfect storm alignment of conditions.

It could be something as simple as you may have to let the fire get hotter and really build up a reserve of heat in the chimney system to maintain a strong draft during reloading. Enough heat that no mater how powerful the house stack gets the chimney system always wins that tug-o-war. Maybe even split up the reloading to thinner layers of coal to reduce the temp drop in the chimney system ?''

We've pretty well covered and crossed off everything else.

Paul

Lee,

With the many references so far to a possible blockage, I think that if there had been enough material to cause a blockage, Jared would have seen the debris and mentioned it.

Paul

The chimney effect going out a roof vent does make a lot of sense. You could have a barn fan blowing air into the house and it could all go out a roof vent. If the roof vent was drawing air, the air has to come from somewhere, and your chimney could be that source. then the next day everything could work fine. That and the temporary blockage that was mentioned both make sense to me at this point.

Sunny Boy wrote:

Jared43758 wrote:A person can be a Brain surgeon and still be a A hole and a Smart A

I don't see that Mac was being either. We all have our own styles of helping, some are gentle, some are toe stepping (you out there Fred ? ). Mac's one of the good guys always willing to help. And, we're trying to work on his sense of humor!

I realize this is extremely frustrating for you not knowing if you can safely keep your family warm with winter coming on. Been there and had the dirty looks from cold family members more than once. We're all here trying to help you get back to were your were - safely heating with coal .

So, lets all take a deep breath and start over.

I agree that next time it turns cold try seeing where the air currents are going and how strong are they. I use a piece of smoldering cotton string, but the incense will work just as well. And the family will probably like the smell better.

The direction and how fast that little stream of smoke moves will tell you a lot that you can not see. It will steer you right to where the air is going. And it will show air movement that you likely can't feel, but that could have enough volume to cause your chimney to reverse flow.

With chimney system clear reloading time is when the chimney system's draft strength was it's lowest after reloading. With cold outdoor weather, that's the time it most likely will reverse as the house stack affect will likewise get stronger and the outdoor chimney is getting colder. Sorta like a perfect storm alignment of conditions.

It could be something as simple as you may have to let the fire get hotter and really build up a reserve of heat in the chimney system to maintain a strong draft during reloading. Enough heat that no mater how powerful the house stack gets the chimney system always wins that tug-o-war. Maybe even split up the reloading to thinner layers of coal to reduce the temp drop in the chimney system ?''

We've pretty well covered and crossed off everything else.

Paul

i'll step in here just far enough to echo the portion of this post by Paul. it's probably going to be an escape route that's not easy to see with out smoke, and will have a low volume and possibly velocity.

any one with a Manometer can prove this very easily. take the sensor tube off at the gauge end and suck on it just enough to get the register your stove usually runs at, the minute amount of neg. pressure required for eith er good draft or bad is very small.

good luck by the way, I feel fortunate not to have had this as one of my operational issues.

warminmn's post came in while I was responding and I guess I missed something earlier.

is there a path thru some part of the ceiling into the attic ? if so and there are any surface, gable or ridge vents that could be your problem. it would even present and disappear if the temp. induced draft force varied enough in the chimney.

2CW

After reading all posts , I'm leaning toward a mechanical IE( Kitchen exhaust, bathroom , or dryer) is there another heating appliance that may have kicked on or a fireplace? because you haven't been able to duplicate the issue . Sometimes we have eliminated something in our mind without actually verifying. It appears to not be caused by a blockage because how the smoke came into the basement.