About to give up! Ash(?) Problems

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wipe your fingers on the stove or heat the place out and if your fingers are dirty is that the dust comes from. I suggest you seal all pipe joints and tee cap
 
ktenn said:
The dust is gray/white. We've thought about the fines, but we are pretty careful with that. We definitely have some issue with that, but I don't think it's the main problem.
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Do you use a conditioner in your humidifier water ? You can get a powerdery mildew if you over humidify. Especially from mister types. I use and evap type and use conditioner and have had no issue as yet.
 
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This may or may not help but a few years back our home had a dust problem
The whole house would be covered in dust every 2 days . We heat with wood (furnace )
and a pellet stove in one room . The only way to solve the problem was with a whole
house electronic air filter and run the furnace fan on low 24 hours a day . Both my
wife and 2 boys had allergies coming out of there ying yang . the filter made a 100%
improvement . We also use it with the A/C .
 
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This may or may not help but a few years back our home had a dust problem
The whole house would be covered in dust every 2 days . We heat with wood (furnace )
and a pellet stove in one room . The only way to solve the problem was with a whole
house electronic air filter and run the furnace fan on low 24 hours a day . Both my
wife and 2 boys had allergies coming out of there ying yang . the filter made a 100%
improvement . We also use it with the A/C .
 
I'll be darned if I know what happened to the microscope I had when I was a kid, but if you had one, perhaps looking at the particles through a 'scope would tell you something.
 
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ktenn said:
We have been running the humidifier in the one room to test, but we had to turn it off because it was getting too wet in there. It's a small room! There was a big dust/humid cloud but then after it all settled, there was no dust anywhere in the room that I could see. What's the deal? I so want that to be the issue!!
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If it was that humid in the room, the dust may have gotten carried out by evaporation / the humid air -> equalizing with the dryer air outside the room. Please post the Brand name and Model # of the humidifier, so we can check what (type) it is / provide better feedback to you.

ktenn said:
We had the stove and venting cleaned well once in the middle of last season and once at the end. That didn't really change the dust. Like someone else said, we might look at replacing the filter on the Ash Vac because I feel like I can smell ash when we run that thing. But we did get a hose to vent it out the window.
Click to expand...

Getting a new filter for the ash Vac seems like a logical, low cost step.. ( Amazon has them at a good price. )
 
No matter how good your stove is, it's going to generate a certain amount of crud, be it ash that seeps out around door gaskets and other places or just normal house dust that gets run through the system.

Pellet dust adds to the mix as well
 
ktenn said:
Ok. thanks for the feedback!!

We had the stove and venting cleaned well once in the middle of last season and once at the end. That didn't really change the dust. Like someone else said, we might look at replacing the filter on the Ash Vac because I feel like I can smell ash when we run that thing. But we did get a hose to vent it out the window.

How do you seal the venting? They take it all apart when they clean it.
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The obvious simple answer is either the vac is leaking or your stove exh system is leaking and being sucked through the stove by the convection fan and spread over the house. Start by starting the stove at night and with the lights off shine a flash light at every joint in the exh system starting at the stove and working your way toward the wall or ceiling where ever the exh pipe goes. The other cause is a leaky filter on your vac. Try turning it on and as you are cleaning shine a light around it looking for soot in the air. Most of the time the joints can be sealed by either high temp tape or high temp silicone smeared over the seams and joints of the exh pipe. Often the installer will not do that on the joint between the stove and rest of the pipe and that would be my first place to look
 
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Hi Rona I mentioned the same thing for the pipe of the stove in a post from the beginning and also a way to check in another post and there is still no response. Looks like looking much more complicated than what was
 
Golfeur said:
Hi Rona I mentioned the same thing for the pipe of the stove in a post from the beginning and also a way to check in another post and there is still no response. Looks like looking much more complicated than what was
Click to expand...

Thanks - we've talked about your suggestion as well and don't worry, we are looking into that too! We just hadn't turned on the stove yet and it was cleaned at the end of last season, so we figured we would start with the humidifers and then work towards the stove. I'm pretty sure the venting isn't sealed, but they take it all apart to clean it, so if we seal it, how will they clean it? Dumb question, I'm sure.

I'll try to post a pic of it later.
 
CleanFire said:
If it was that humid in the room, the dust may have gotten carried out by evaporation / the humid air -> equalizing with the dryer air outside the room. Please post the Brand name and Model # of the humidifier, so we can check what (type) it is / provide better feedback to you.

We have 2 humidifiers. Both are ultrasonic.
One is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Bionaire-Ultrasonic-Filter-Free-Humidifier-BUL7933CT/dp/B002MYZFKC
and the other is the little Crane 1 gallon one generally used in kids rooms.

Getting a new filter for the ash Vac seems like a logical, low cost step.. ( Amazon has them at a good price. )
Click to expand...
Filter ordered! :)
 
The weird thing is that we aren't really finding much of the dust downstairs... It is all upstairs mostly. The stove blows a lot though, so maybe it is just blowing and being carried up. Or maybe it is the humidifiers since they are all upstairs.

Here are pics of the venting.
 

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Can I just say that I love this forum! I really appreciate the help and sense of community! Thanks everyone for continuing to work through this with us!!
 
If I had to guess the cause, it would be the vacuum.

Ash is tough to trap in most vacuums, even those with Hepa filters

We have a built in system that takes everything to the main unit that's out of the living quarters and then exhausts outside

We did this because my other half has allergies, and a vacuum produces clouds of dust. (Very fine dust)

Using a shop vac and making sure its sealed tight, and then hook up a hose to the exhaust port and run it out a window to vent the dust that will escape.

The flashlight trick as mentioned will spot this stuff right off.

Use a white LED light as it highlights dust and smoke far better in the dark room.

Snowy
 
Ktenn ash dust is very volatile and with the air circulation it spreads in the entire house. I agree that your vacuum can dust but your biggest problem is the pipe that escapes the very little dust but cons 24/7 continuously. The distribution fan draws this dust comes out of the pipe and spread throughout the house and do not forget that heat rises so the dust rises with heat. Place your finger on the grill or hot air comes out of the stove and you'll find the same dust that you have in the house
 
My P61 had a small exhaust leak last year. I sealed it up with silicon and also taped the T cap that is located in my fireplace while at it. But any dust I ever got from this stove has never made it upstairs. In fact it's mostly contained within the stove room ( living room) in my case . To which I own two pianos, a black grand piano and a black digital piano both of which show the smallest amount of escaped anything immediately. Just based on my personal experience and I've burned one form of stove or another for a really long time, I don't think this problem is the stove if you only experience it upstairs. Doesn't anyone find it more than coincidental that there are multi humidifiers upstairs and that is where the dust shows up !! LOL
 
"We have 2 humidifiers. Both are ultrasonic.
One is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Bionaire-Ultrasonic-Filter-Free-Humidifier-BUL7933CT/dp/B002MYZFKC
and the other is the little Crane 1 gallon one generally used in kids rooms."

In the question and answer section of that link, you will see a source for a de-mineralization cartridge compatible with the Bionaire humidifier you are using. (Using the cartridge, in conjunction with an available water treatment, may help reduce the mineral dust generated.)

If we were having the issue here, next step would be to purchase a few (4-5) gallons of Distilled water from the local grocery, and use the distilled water in the Humidifiers, instead of tap water from the house, cleanup an area and monitor: if the dust abates or greatly lessens, you've found the source of your issue.

You may want to consider a Warm Mist Humidifier for the kid's room.

Link to the one's we use here, available at WalMart -

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sunbeam-Warm-Mist-Humidifier-Black/32664862

Like I mentioned above, they only last one season or so here, due to mineral buildup on the heater element, but at $25.00, the cost too high / doesn't "break the bank", and we use our own tap water, vs. distilled. (We've used the Warm Mist humidifiers for years, when the kids were little & growing up, and still do today.)

Lots of good recommendations in the thread - I'm sure you will get to the bottom of the issue / the source, please let us know how it goes, always nice to read about solutions and success outcomes here.
 
ktenn said:
. . we aren't really finding much of the dust downstairs... It is all upstairs mostly. . Or maybe it is the humidifiers since they are all upstairs.:ZZZ
.
Click to expand...
;)
 
Yes, we use an evaporation style Kenmore cabinet humidifier with filters, go through maybe 8-10 gal of water in 24 hours in the driest of winter weather and get no film or mildew etc in the house. It's probably just a testimony as to how loose the house is really. The filters do get absolutely grungy and have to be changed periodically, sure glad not to be breathing that crap and I can't imagine misting that into the room 24/7. No, Evap is the way to go. The one we have holds 4.6 gallons of water and we fill it twice in 24 hours, it's capable of going through 14 gallons in 24 hours though and humidifying 2900 sq ft. They also make a 9 gal one.
 
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