First year questions - smells, chimneys, thoughts

[Jebb]

Learned a lot from this community over the past year. If anybody has some thoughts I'd appreciate it!
Got a jotul f45 V2 installed last December. Its been mostly all love with a couple questions/concerns. House is 2,000 sq ft 2 story with stove on one end in main floor living room. Hooked to double wall DVL stove pipe to a wall thimble and exterior stainless duratech chimney. Total height from top of the stove to cap is about 18 feet. Chimney was 3 feet shorter (15 feet total height) until last week when I had 3 feet of pipe added. I'm hoping this will improve draft as I found the fires would often smoulder and smell up the house if I closed the air control past about 1/4 closed even with the firebox pretty loaded up.

Does it make sense that it could be a draft problem? Adding 3 feet to the chimney for this year should help right? If I'm still having smells, should I look at replacing the stove pipe connector gasket on the back of the stove?

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, that should help.
Your height was likely on the short side; more than 15' but for each 90 (you have two turns) you have to add 2 ft to the minimum required length and for each ft of horizontal run too in order to keep the required draft for which the minimum length was set.

 

[bigealta]

3 feet could help. At 15 feet with 2 90 Degree turns you are really at below min. chimney height.
1/4 open draft certainly can be to far closed with your sub par draft. (assuming you meant 1/4 open)
If you did mean 3/4 open then you have very sub par draft.
You should just try adjusting the draft by watching the fire not any particular position of the draft level.

Of course check your wood. It will not burn well unless under 20% moisture content tested on fresh split with the meter pins sunk deeply into the parallel grain.

 

[Jebb]

Yes, I did mean 1/4 open (3/4 closed).
Thanks for the input! Reaffirms most of my thoughts.
Definitely will be burning better quality wood this year which I'm sure will help too
Happy burning