Smoke in the room, Stovax County 5 Wide

[Steven P]

That is pointing more to the chimney (flue / chimney) installation. At the stove end of things, decent clean fire, kept at a decent temperature, plenty of air, nothing in the room to cause a negative pressure into the room.

 

Might need a couple of photos showing how it is installed but I also think that the end result of this thread would be "get an independent installer to have a look" and noting that a lot of sweeps also do installation so a word with them when they do the chimney later in the year to check the installation. However a decent sweep would have highlighted this already if there was a blatant problem. Certainly a taller chimney might help, adds something to the installation to provide firm fixing points

[openspaceman]

4 hours ago, treeworld1203 said:

Im not up on these terms, please excuse my ignorance. We don't have a chimney on our bungalow, i think they called the flue they installed, a twin wall system?

Okay my mistake for not reading the thread thoroughly.

 

As it is a system flue  the joints should be fine and the exhaust should flow at a fairly constant rate, without any cold brickwork or convolutions to cause any eddying back. So I can only assume it is something to do with the location as being insulated twin wall it should warm up quickly.

[treeworld1203]

When I get a minute between Christmas and new year, I will pop some pics on here of the stove and flue set up. In the meantime, merry Christmas!

[Essexlogman]

On 21/12/2023 at 21:28, treeworld1203 said:

It varies, sometimes you cant see any smoke but we see little bits of ash floating up out of the open door and it smells smokey. Most of the time the smoke is visible, and it is quite a lot and we just try and shut the door asap. We always are burning hot, about 200 degrees C. We refuel before the temeprature drops. The fire has plenty of flames and a good bed of red hot embers.

Just having a perusal of your initial enquiry this thread and the answers everything sounds about right apart from this section I Note you are always burning hot as you say at 200 degrees c I am assuming this is your flue temp if so this is nowhere near the sweet spot operating temperature you should be looking at Min 250 to 400 350 being the optimum temp our thermometer shows a max of 480, we aim to get between 300 to 350 for top performance from our newly fitted Parkray Hunter aspect 7 fitted burning bone dry Oak and Apple logs atm also single storey chimney height above the ridge height I can only speak from my own experiences and recommendations others may differ hope this may help someway

[Steven P]

When it comes to draw in the chimney I wouldn't get too hung up about flue temperatures, hot air rises and a candle should create a draw upwards (bit of a tip. if the fire is proper cold - after a weekend winter away for example, I'll burn a couple of sheets of newspaper in there while I bring logs and kindling in just to start the chimney drawing a bit)

 

Temperature is an indication of efficiency of the fire, too cold and slumbering it is inefficient, too hot and again inefficient. Not a perfect measure of course, I bet I could get wet logs and the firebox glowing red hot.

[treeworld1203]

19 hours ago, Essexlogman said:

you should be looking at Min 250 to 400 350 being the optimum temp

Degrees C ? The flue temperature gauge we have says that anything above 250 C is "too hot" ... 

[treeworld1203]

Here is a picture showing a typical burn. This is how we are running it daily. Temperature on the flue reading around 200 C, the airwash on max, the primary air on max and the secondary air control underneath the stove pushed as far away as possible (remains open at 15%). We had the secondary air control wide open until recently. The problem doesn't seem to have changed regardless of where the secondary air control is. If we close down the primary air control (like the manual says) then we start to lose temperature. 

I will try and get a video next of loading it, showing our technique with the smoke coming out.

a

[GarethM]

Flue temp should be taken only be at the stove outlet, usually a short section of single wall depending on the installation.

 

If twin wall is at 250c it's well beyond knackered it's a fire hazard.

 

Just get reputable stove installer to have a look and see what they suggest or atleast your local sweep will point you in the right direct.

 

If it's been dragging on since it's installation years ago, get it sorted once and for all.

 

 

[Essexlogman]

27 minutes ago, treeworld1203 said:

Here is a picture showing a typical burn. This is how we are running it daily. Temperature on the flue reading around 200 C, the airwash on max, the primary air on max and the secondary air control underneath the stove pushed as far away as possible (remains open at 15%). We had the secondary air control wide open until recently. The problem doesn't seem to have changed regardless of where the secondary air control is. If we close down the primary air control (like the manual says) then we start to lose temperature. 

I will try and get a video next of loading it, showing our technique with the smoke coming out.

a

Yes my apologies those figures I quoted were Farenheight and your photo looks like it should be spot on

[treeworld1203]

On 21/12/2023 at 15:43, woody paul said:

As you live in bungalow get on roof and check flue they tar up right at the top and no matter how much you sweep you can't dislodge it

Our flue has got a bit of coarse mesh at the top with the "lid" above that. When the chimney sweep comes, his wife stands outside until she can see the brush right up to the "lid". So I assume the problem we descibe we wouldn't have.