Should it be smoking?

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reaperman1

Burning Hunk
Aug 7, 2022
145
Minnesota
About 1.5 hours after a small reload of 3 smaller splits before I load it up before nighttime. It's about 10 degrees outside and. the wood is 6+ years dry, and I have a small rolling flame. I never know if it's a big deal if I can see smoke from the stack. It seems like it quits smoking once the wood it basically coaled up and not much before. The cat temps are always up throughout the burn cycle.
 

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Smoke dilutes, steam dissolves.

But sometimes there is a little smoke - it should not be consistent, but intermittent can happen (imo)
 
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Sometimes the cat can get overwhelmed depending on split size and species and not burn all the smoke so some passes through. Also if draft is too great the smoke will be sucked through too fast to be processed.
 
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Looks good to me, If your burning 24/7 and worried about the smoke, check your chimney in a month, if the cap area is getting gummed up with junk, then look into the stove controls - by-pass seal, cat life ect.. the temps your showing now make me think everything is good to go on your end.
 
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I zoomed in on your chimney picture, looks like you have icicles forming on the drip cap? I have read on this forum that icicles are common so I’m GUESSING you’re looking at water vapour. Wood smoke would have a blue tint to it.
 
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My first guess was steam, which happens when temps are in the low teens and below.
 
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I zoomed in on your chimney picture, looks like you have icicles forming on the drip cap? I have read on this forum that icicles are common so I’m GUESSING you’re looking at water vapour. Wood smoke would have a blue tint to it.
Your right, those are icicles, good catch. I always figured where hot and cold meet, something has to give. Then I read about users freaking out when their stack smokes a bit.
 
Go out at start up to see what smoke looks like.
Then go out at ripping hot to see what steam looks like.
Then you will know what to look for in the future.
 
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Your right, those are icicles, good catch. I always figured where hot and cold meet, something has to give. Then I read about users freaking out when their stack smokes a bit.
Smoke happens. It good to have as little smoke as possible, but as long as you are keeping up on the chimney sweeping, no issues.