Need help with Encore 2040-C

[Turbo89]

forgot to reply.

6inch double wall chimney, 18.5ft straight up. no key damper

Honestly it sounds like we have almost the exact same setup! I’d focus on wood / loading and see if that gets you somewhere.

If the stove were new I’d be calling the company and making them diagnose it! Another thought - is the bypass closing all the way (seems like a long shot since you can turn the flames way down)?

If it’s not new, I'd re-gasket everything and make sure it’s sealed up tight (include in the flue adapter section and bypass gaskets). This is probably $40-50 in material and a few hours if you have the skill.

 

[Mebenal]

This is the wood I have

 

[Mebenal]

This is the bed of coals I load on

 

[Mebenal]

This is what I would consider my stove to be 3/4 full

With this amount of wood, I will get about 2.5-3.5 hours

 

[Mebenal]

Here's an example of the backpuffing I often experience when the air is at 0%.

This specific case, the air has been at 0% for about 1.5 hours now, and suddenly it decides to start backpuffing. (it did not backpuff until 90min into the burn time)
The stove will do this every 20-30 seconds until I turn the air up to 10%.

This would be slightly on the mild side, when the backpuffing is more aggressive, I can visually see/smell a small amount of smoke come out of the front door. (since i fixed the leak, i dont see the smoke come out)

 

[Turbo89]

If I put that much wood in my stove (hardwood), I’d get 6-7hrs no problem, but if I pushed all the coals to the back (built a little wall near secondary intake holes) I’d get 10+ hrs. When I’m loading it, the wood in the front literally using touching coals (I try to make it only one so only one piece is in direct contact with the hot coals.

Those splits look smallish too, i typically burn much larger pieces overnight. Usually I’ll but a couple of the largest pieces at the bottom, so they take a while to burn off/ propagate the flame up to the top.

That back puff looks a lot like secondary ignition (smoke burning), and by itself isn’t concerning. The fact that’s it’s pushing smoke into the room is though.

I run mine fully closed usually, but sometimes I close the air control all the way down and just crack it (say 1/8th).