Adjusting to wood heat?

That's not our experience, nor that of our woodburning friends. We burn wood as the sole heat source, and when I clean out the stove there is NO NO NO way I am not going to get ash in the air that settles on the furniture. There is nothing wrong with our stove, but that bad boy is lit all the time in the winter and is shoveled out with embers in it. I'll fill a big ash bucket with each cleanout. So it's not the burning that does it, it is the cleanout.

Those who say they never had wood smoke smell in the house must never open the door to put on a few logs, is all I can say. I'm not talking about a huge haze, just wood smoke smell. I happen to like the smell, especially apple and a cedar log every now and then. But the OP apparently has trouble with it.

Also, where I live, you can get a heat inversion layer outside because it does not get cold and stay cold. If you have a couple warm 70s days followed by a strong cold front dropping in an hour to the 30s, especially if the front arrives late evening or at night, it sometimes can cause the smoke column in the chimney to collapse, and you can get a smokey smell in the house. It's rare, but it does happen, and like I say, it has happened to all my sole woodburning friends as well as me, so I know it is not something "wrong" with my setup.

I've been heating solely with wood for 17 years now, with a nice well-made sealed stove. Here it is...wouldn't trade it for anything...it is a far cry from a boxwood unit! If you close the vents, the fire will barely smolder...which is great for burning bois de arc.



I have many friends who heat solely with wood, who have the same experiences. The only folks I know who DON'T sometimes smell wood smoke or get ash in the house are the friends who do not use the stove to heat the whole house on its own. If you have alternate heat, you can afford to let the thing totally cool down before cleaning, and you also tend to have less ash because you burn less wood. Like I say, a cleanout is a real load when I do it, because the stove is a real workhorse at our place, where it alone heats 2,600 SF.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

Thanks, everyone! It sounds like things may not be as hopeless as I was starting to think. The HEPA filters sound like a great idea. Also this stove was an older model, certainly not airtight, and the cabin was probably a bit dusty as well which probably didn't help. Hopefully we will get other chances to be in the vicinity of a working wood stove before we are in a position to buy one of our own. We are certainly willing to invest in a good quality, airtight one IF we can be sure that it won't be a waste of money due to us being unable to use it.

I do have one more question- my dad told me that it was "normal" for the room to fill up with smoke until the draft really gets going. It sounds like that's not the case from what most of you are saying?

Thanks again,
Sarah

you do have to get the stove to draft... and depending on the flue, chimney, shape of the firebox, and how much you suck at building fires... that can take a bit. Until the warm air is going UP the chimney and not OUT the stove door, smoke will get in the room.

R

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When faced with issues in life, where do you look for the problem; out the window, or in the mirror?

Strangely, we rented a house for 4 years that only had an old woodstove (Fisher I believe) and it was the only source of heat we had for all those years. I suffer from extreme asthma and allergies and never had a problem with this old nonairtight stove; HOWEVER, we then built a home and purchased one of the new "airtight" supposedly more efficient models and I had such horrible breathing problems every day until we moved. Had to make numerous middle of the night runs to the ER because I couldn't breathe. To this day I still don't understand why the older stove never bothered me but the new one did.

I suspect Deb, that it was your new house, not your stove, that caused the problem...maybe. Newer homes are much more air tight, so the stove robs the house of oxygen from you to keep the fire going.

Thanks for posting the picture of your stove Jim S. One difference between yours and mine (I think) is that mine has a separate ash compartment and pan below the main firebox. If I'm careful and timely with my ash removal, I don't release any dust into the house when I slide the pan out for disposal. Another thing I've learned with mine is to disengage the catalytic converter and keep the ash pan door open during the whole operation of cleaning/removal. If any dust is disturbed, it is drafted right back up into the stove and up the chimney. I don't seem to have much dust in the house...and I never dust.

It was probably the fact that the newer house was sealed much better. So in the older home the stove changed the air easier. Just a thought.

As for the smokey stove.......

Well their are a few things that haven't been mentioned.

First.
An old non-air tight or new air tight makes no differance. It's the way the stove is operated. When you ran that stove it probably wasn't that cold. As the temps. outside fall the draft increases. So don't try to run a stove at 50F or higher. If you must you really gotta try and keep the fire up to get the smoke out.

Second.
If the house is "air tight" or modern construction. You should get a stove with an outside air intake. It will greatly decrease any "back puffing". If you can't then you should really crack a window in the room with the stove.

Third.
Always open all dampers fully before opening the door very slowly. First you just crack the door..... Then fully open it.

Four.
Only remove ash when the fire is fully out.
That said.
If you must keep the fire going always (we must). Only remove ash when all wood is consumed. Coals can be present but no fire or fresh wood. Do it when the stove is still real hot. As above crack a window in the room with the stove to ease air flow.

Using these methods. We have no wood smell and heat with just wood. 9 cord a year and zero smell. Except of course outside.

Here is a pic of our stove.




You can see in the pic the water pot. It is really hard to keep the moisture up.

Good point but actually, we had to move into our new house before we finished construction and so it definitely wasn't sealed up LOL (we built ourselves). We probably didn't even have enough insulation in at the time either. I think possibly it was something with perhaps the way the chimney or stove was installed, altho we hired a local professional for both so one would assume it was done correctly.