Black Exhaust Smoke

[bclmread]

I'm on my third season with my Enviro Empress, now burning Barefoot pellets.

When outside, I noticed that the smoke was rather black, or more so that I ever remember. Its been very cold (3-15 degrees F) recently and didn't know if that had anything to do with the smoke. I have a whole house humidifier in the room with the stove and humidity in that room runs between 25% and 40%.

Stove was running on high setting when I observed the dark smoke outside.

I had my technician set the airflow during a summer cleaning and I have not touched since. He uses a pressure gauge to set it so as to get the right draw.

Any ideas why the smoke seems more black than normal?

 

[littlesmokey]

If you have visible smoke, you need more combustion air. The tech setting may have been right for the overall, but the extra cold and demand you are putting on the stove needs an adjustment to the air supply. If your flame is lazy and you have extra ash, you need to trim the air. Open the damper and see if things improve.

 

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and make sure the unit and chimney are clean air can't get in if it can't get out...

 

[krooser]

THROUGHLY clean your stove... use a leafblower, shop vac or other means to suck the ash outta the vent side of the stove.

Adjusting the intake air is only a band-aid... if the stove burned good with the intial setting you shouldn't have to change it.

 

[crausch]

I would try what littlesmokey suggests first. The reason your your smoke is black is the fire is starving for some air. Pulling your damper out a little is easier then cleaning your entire vent pipe. While kroozer has a good point that if the pipe is dirty, then yes it will need to be cleaned, but it is possible that a bag or bags of pellets could be moister or vary that they would not burn the same as previous bags. Pellets that might be harder to burn (for moistness or otherwise) could require more combustion air. Cleaning an already clean vent would not help the air/fuel ratio.

 

[bclmread]

I keep the stove fairly clean, removing all visible ash every 24-48 hours of burn. Combustion air is from inside the house. I recently removed and cleaned the side ports, which I didn't know about last year until tech. came out last season for "poor burn" and these spots were full. I don't think there was even mention of these in the manual. Exhaust piping s/b fairly clean, esp. the first 8', since its vertical, and I cleaned it out 2 weeks ago.

I have opened the air supply a bit more and will check for smoke differences in the AM.

 

[krooser]

I keep the stove fairly clean, removing all visible ash every 24-48 hours of burn. Combustion air is from inside the house. I recently removed and cleaned the side ports, which I didn't know about last year until tech. came out last season for "poor burn" and these spots were full. I don't think there was even mention of these in the manual. Exhaust piping s/b fairly clean, esp. the first 8', since its vertical, and I cleaned it out 2 weeks ago.

I have opened the air supply a bit more and will check for smoke differences in the AM.

Tap around the inside of the firebox with a hammer... you'll be surprised at the amount of ash that falls out into the ash pan.