Carbon Monoxide OVER AND OVER and no solutions - PLEASE HELP US!!!!!!!!!!

[karri0n]

It just seems that it would have to be a MAJOR pressure differential for the CO to downdraft into the gas flue. It would be fighting the updraft from the gas flue. Even cold, that gas flue is probably drafting upwards at all times.

 

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Marty-

Chimney is on inside wall of home, right up the center, so wall is always warm.

Sorry to rant. You have no idea how this has affected our lives. I will try to stick to the plain facts. I work two jobs, as does my husband and we are reading as much as we can, but it is tough to suddenly become experts on this when we just hope that between two fire chiefs and two fireplace businesses with 40 years between them, someone would be able to help us. I never thought I'd have to be the one to solve this when my degrees have nothing to do with this. They have no more ideas and have given up. I need help.

I'll keep searching for answers and post more later.

 

[karri0n]

Install outdoor air for the woodstove, and get a tech out to check your water heater and furnace. There's only 3 appliances that make CO that you actively use, and barring the sewer gases theory, one of these is the culprit. If you don't smell any wood smoke, the odds that it's coming from the woodstove are quite small, but the wood stove is definitely what's causing the issue if it only happens when the stove is running. Also, like Highbeam said, if it's a small crack or separation in the flue of the woodstove, it likely won't be seen without pulling the pipe.

 

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Tech was here and checked the H20 heater in Nov 2007...he sealed up the gas leaks on the pipe on that and on the furnace. Came back later and everything was zeroed while running.

We had some sewer smell last summer which wasn't explained by the sewer guy...pumped it...couldn't find any leaks or reasons for the smell. Left saying he could replace our entire septic. Not an option when we are having intermittent smells.

Highbeam - I asked if it could have been ripped after the install guys said how hard the shoved and pushed to cram it in there. He instantly blew it off and said that was not an option - that has been my gut feeling since the day this started. How can we check? I wondered if we could drop a camera in there and shine a light up along the outside of the stove to see if we could see light?? What does anyone recommend?

Ed- each appliance was running when checked. We don't idle our cars. They are started and backed out immediately, the door is closed, and if we have to idle it, we back it away from there. It has happened when no one has left that morning. It never happened in the past year of living here even when I one time ran back in the house, car idling, garage door open, and back out to the vehicle. There are no outdoor wood burning fireplaces anywhere in a 1/2 mile radius.

Leon- not much smoke backs out, but I always close my damper all the way before opening it and turn off the blower first to avoid pulling any of the CO in the burner out into the room. Someone had suggested when this first happened that maybe I got a peak level because I left it open too long when loading, but I'm pretty quick.

Outside air kit was installed several weeks ago, and problem has not changed at all.

More later........

 

[CarbonNeutral]

I couldn't catch whether you had approached this truly methodically. You need to run just the wood stove for 2/3 days - switch off every other CO producing appliance. I understand this may cause hardship (water, lack of heat), but you'll have to tough it out - move your family to a friends house for a while. Then run just one of the CO appliances without the stove. Then another, one at a time. Then add each one of these in with the woodstove running. Find the combination or single point of failure that causes your problems.

If you can't recreate the problem, think why - look on wunderground.com to see historical wind directions/temperatures. Keep a scientific journal of when appliances are run, what the stove is doing, weather, etc.

Good luck.

 

[karri0n]

Tech was here and checked the H20 heater in Nov 2007...he sealed up the gas leaks on the pipe on that and on the furnace. Came back later and everything was zeroed while running.

We had some sewer smell last summer which wasn't explained by the sewer guy...pumped it...couldn't find any leaks or reasons for the smell. Left saying he could replace our entire septic. Not an option when we are having intermittent smells.

Highbeam - I asked if it could have been ripped after the install guys said how hard the shoved and pushed to cram it in there. He instantly blew it off and said that was not an option - that has been my gut feeling since the day this started. How can we check? I wondered if we could drop a camera in there and shine a light up along the outside of the stove to see if we could see light?? What does anyone recommend?

Ed- each appliance was running when checked. We don't idle our cars. They are started and backed out immediately, the door is closed, and if we have to idle it, we back it away from there. It has happened when no one has left that morning. It never happened in the past year of living here even when I one time ran back in the house, car idling, garage door open, and back out to the vehicle. There are no outdoor wood burning fireplaces anywhere in a 1/2 mile radius.

Leon- not much smoke backs out, but I always close my damper all the way before opening it and turn off the blower first to avoid pulling any of the CO in the burner out into the room. Someone had suggested when this first happened that maybe I got a peak level because I left it open too long when loading, but I'm pretty quick.

Outside air kit was installed several weeks ago, and problem has not changed at all.

More later........

Is that a typo? You close the damper when you open the stove door? Is this a pipe damper, or are you talking about the air inlet for the stove? If it's a pipe damper, you should never open the door with the damper closed. If you're just meaning the air inlet for the stove, this won't really have any effect with the door open.

 

[edthedawg]

WI Girl,

It's obvious you're beyond frustrated with this, and now suddenly you have dozens of "helpers" throwing even more ideas at you. You're here for help and we're here to help you - it's all good

You need to sift thru ALL the stuff here - maybe write it all down or print it out - whatever works for you... There's a ton of good ideas made so far, and some probably really irrelevant ones. If the stove alone brings on the condition, yet it takes a few days of running to register, and even then it's not something you can definitely make happen, that is a really unique occurrence.

Focus on the main culprit for now - you have a wonky woodstove installation - get a different sweep to do a camera-drop check down your liner, looking for tears. Just cause your Installer says it's fine, isn't reason enough to believe it is, esp w/ the amount of aggravation caused thus far.

You might try a pressurization test yourself - pull the stove out, cap the top of the chimney temporarily, and MacGuyver yourself a compressor / fan / manometer rig to pressure-test (or conversely, leak-check) the flue itself. You would expect that if it was capped at the top, and pressurized at the bottom, that it would build up some serious backpressure (i.e. blow off whatever you tried to cap it with!). Hopefully it's not a crack or tear that only opens when hot...

One other thought is, esp if you've gone to the trouble of making this pressurization contraption, to just run that for awhile - moving basement air up and out of the chimney. Yeah you have an OAK, and you can even duct that into the MacGuyver Box I'm discussing - whatever you want to do - just simulate the overall air / exhaust motion of the stove while eliminating its own CO output as a contributor. Chances are the CO detectors stay at zero, and you will at least have a really good idea where your CO is coming from...

I would consider outdoor-vented (i.e. out the top of a flue) or outdoor-generated (i.e your idling cars, which inexplicably keep getting mentioned) CO sources to be almost completely incapable of being a problem here, unless there is some inlet drawing air back into the basement immediately adjacent to the CO-producing outlet.

Your paired stacks crammed into the single flue? They meet this criteria.

Again - good luck and we are all hoping for the best here!

 

[daveswoodhauler]

Sorry for all your trouble with this.
I second with Ed in that you need to have a sweep drop a camera down there and scope out the issue.
Also, some of the larger plumbers/sewer cleaners have the same type equipment if a sweep isn't in your area.
The idea about running each appliance is also very good.
Do you have multiple CO detectors in your house? and if so, is one reading much higher than the others?
If so, perhaps bring them all down to where you are getting the highest readings and scatter around the basement....might be able to pinpoint where the CO2 is the highest.
Again, hope things work out for you....sounds like you are at wits end...hang in there.

 

[colebrookman]

I'm reaching but this stove is new to you. If I were to start my stove from coals in the AM and after only 5 or 10 minutes, as you say, close it down it down from full open to 3/4ths closed my stove would puff and be angry. This has happened at night when I fill the stove and close it down to soon. Our bedroom is on the same floor and guess where the smell goes, not the kitchen or bath and as my great wife will say, it's my fault. I get up and can see the stove unhappily chugging along until I open the air. These air tights are not as you know. Long story but try letting your stove come up to speed, 500 degrees or so then close only to half and then close more a little later. New stoves have a personality of their own and most of us struggle the first few months, esp. if it's really cold out. You are burning nice dry wood, correct. As others have said, start with the basics which in this case is new stove operation. Also, unlike my stove which is on our living level you would not hear or see the puffing till you smell wood burning. Be very careful because CO will accumulate in your blood stream. While your reading isn't too bad I would worry that it could get worst. Keep those alarms on. Be safe and good luck.
Ed

 

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This shows our vents out the side of the house.

 

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The chimney view from the West side

 

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View from the East

 

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The fireplace guy said:
1. no flat damper in the stove pipe
2. wasn't possible for the CO to suck back down into the other pipe if the wood stove was burning a decent fire when the alarm went off because he said the pressure would be opposite...........????
3. he put in a 6" stainless steel tube (someone asked about that)
4. their chipping couldn't have broken through to the other hole that the gas fireplace tube is in
5. when asked if there wasn't some way to check for a hole in what he put in, he very reluctantly said maybe....

After the CO problems started and they said that maybe there was CO coming out when we were starting it, I started closing the damper and shuttingn off the fan just while I opened it to put wood in.
His reply to that was that it was common sense to very slowly crack the door first for a while, let it equalize with the damper wide open, and then put the wood in. In all this time, he has never ever said
to slowly crack the door and it doesn't say that in any of the literature he gave me. In a lifetime of using a woodstove, I've never had to slowly open it a crack for a while. SORRY - ranting again, I guess.

All the same, I've checked my levels before and after loading and an hour after loading and there has always been a zero reading.

Do I have any rights as far as making him come back to check his pipe?? I don't want to make anyone do anything, but he is not wanting to make the trip out here.........

 

[Todd]

This shows our vents out the side of the house.

Could it be your exhaust is getting sucked into your intakes? Seems like they are all too close to each other?

 

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Ed - We burn oak, cherry, and elm that had 1-2 plus years of drying time, split to less than a woman's outstretched hand, stacked in single rows with just the top 1/3 covered with a tarp for optimal drying. We don't ever burn pine.

 

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I had wondered if the intakes could be causing problems . The firechief measured the numbers at the intakes and found those to be zero and said the warmth and moisture carries the CO up, so as long as those are above the intakes, we should be fine, which was confirmed by his readings. I don't know if there is some way to know 100% though, do you?? Any idea on how to rule it out while still getting intake? I supposed i could put the meter with numbers on it out under the intake spot....

 

[stoveguy13]

The chimney view from the West side

Have them raise the wood stove pipe it would be an easy thing to do with a black pipe to see if that fixes it it looks like a short chimney and the dv pipe for the gas fp and the wood stove pipe should have a good ft of seperation. i would extend the wood chimney by about 3ft also you said you close your air controll after about 10-15 mins on a reload try leaving it open 20-30 min. maybe one or both will fix it.

 

[Todd]

The exhaust may go up on a calm day, but it looks like yours are located in an L of the house and the wind may effect this?

 

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Ed-

As far as the stove goes, I'm running it to the letter of the literature the guy gave me on optimal burning. I don't put the damper down until the fire is roaring, and I often let it really get rolling for a while to burn out the junk in the chimney before I close it up a bit. He said to really let it burn hot once a day to get that stuff out, and to do that, I'd need the damper wide open. Some days I go down and stoke it and forget and leave it wide open, and an hour later, I'll notice the smoke smell and remember that I never went back down.

If you have better tips on appropriate burning, I would really love the input. I don't close down the damper unless it is really a solidly burning fire (so maybe it is more than 5 minutes, but not much). Again, even when the damper was accidentally left wide open for long periods, we are having the smokey smell in the house. Don't know if any of that info helps at all.

The fireplace guy asked today, "This is really important. Do you have smokey smell when you have the CO detectors going off?" I had told him that when he came, but yes, and he would not say why that was important. He also didn't remember that the gas fireplace went up the same chimney as the woodstove pipe did.

 

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As a scientist, I would love to do the elimination of items discussed above, but my husband is ready to just have them rip it out NOW. He is so mad. I've tried to keep a record, but I'm not always in the house and definitely not always in the basement to record when the hot water heater kicks in. The fire chief was looking for a detector that we could leave on for 3-4 days and record the data that way. He can't find any around here.

So my plan at this point it to try to get a camera to drop down there. When he comes out to the house with that, I'll have him check those two tubes and the vent tops to see if that could be the source of aggravation. The alarms never went off when I was burning the gas fireplace and the woodstove at the same time.

 

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Stoveguy - I'm bringing up the extending idea to the fireplace guy when he comes with the camera.

 

[Peter B.]

Not that my opinion is worth a dam in the first place, but...

I think CarbonNeutral offered the best idea yet for actually <isolating> the problem... which was to eliminate (shut off) all other possible CO producing appliances and then bring them back on line one at a time (in conjunction with the wood stove) to help identify which (if any) is creating or provoking the problem.

I don't see how a scattershot approach to this will ever yield result... unless you get very lucky.

If you've simply lost patience with the situation, I'd bow out now and wait til you can bring some fresh thought and focus to it all.

Peter B.

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[colebrookman]

Do you have a smokey smell when it's not going off? Get a stove top thermometer, Check your book for temps, around 500 till you shut down is good. Also check the book for the correct pipe size, is it 6" as noted? I couldn't find it on the web.
Don't use the stove for a week and see what happens. It's not a big leak, to bad in a way, and keep an eye on the hot water heater which runs off and on all the time. Be safe.
ED

 

[Dune]

This shows our vents out the side of the house.

Sorry, I can't accept that this is O.K. At a minimum, the water heater exhaust should be raised to a few feet above the eve.

 

[Dune]

The chimney view from the West side

Same here, add a section of pipe to the wood flue, get it higher. Finaly, by all means, call another installer, get a second opinion. The problem with snakeing into the flue sounds very shakey. Also, your method of stoking the fire may be the entire problem. Please reveiw the steps for yourself.