Sove turned off at night - House full of smoke...!!!

[Chris04626]

Smoke enters my house through the holes near the door if the power goes o ut.

Any idea why this happens Mike?

The power has gone out twice while the stove was running and both times puffs of smoke come out from the wholes by the door.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

the stove is trying to draft itself clear depending on the amount of heat and unburnt fuel in the pot when the power drops , pressure builds and ocasionally the pressure forces puffs of smoke out through the airwash intake holes in the front of the stove , usually with a good install and a relatively clear vent system the puffs would be small if they happen. another thing that can cause heavier smoking is a "worst case scenario" , having just lit the stove and not developed any heat in the pipes pot has a fair amount of fuel as its just lit then down it goes from loss of power.

in the case that started this thread i spoke with our poster this morning and we discussed the scenario. the house was cold and the stove had been out so it was as well. he turned on the unit , but apparantly it didnt reach the low limit and shut down, now the low limit shutdown if the unit was warm enough the stove would have registered the heat being higher than the normal shutdown temps but with the house at 60 degrees at best the heat sensor was not quite up to the 80 degree shutdown threshold so it shut down before the fire had a chance to be burned out first. thus you have a flue with not enough heat to draft well and the pile of pelllets in the pot. so it smoldered until he woke up sensing the smoke. i still do not know why the detectors didnt go off. the stove is up and running now and isnt apparantly showing any signs of any malfunction. i believe that it was a fluke thing and will likley not happen again, was just a lot of small things that happened to combine for a strange but feasible happening. bottom line , when you start your stove you should be satisfied that it is up and running normally before turning in. im just as guilty as anyone , ive come home hit on and gone to bed myself in the past , i wont be doing that any more until i know the unit has started properly. looking at some specs this afternoon , i could model out my theory and it can hapen , but only in the following circumstances 1. the house and stove would have to be cold , less than 60F , 2. the stove would have to take more than 10 minutes to start a physical fire. normal startups take between 6 and 8 minutes to have a physical flame, this gives a unit ample time (12-14 minutes) to heat up sufficiently to heat the sensor above the 80 degree shutdown threshold and also to make the 125 degree "proof of fire" at the 20 minute mark the unit comes out of startup in run mode. now if the unit doesnt make proof of fire , but gets above the shutdown temp of 80F then the unit will run in shutdown mode until it cools below that so the fire would build and then die and the shutdown mode would clear the unit before letting it shut off. this apparantly didnt hapen in this case, the stove had lit so late that it couldnt heat the sensor the 20 or so degrees in what was left of the 20 minute clock, so the stove shut down within 3 minutes of the end of the 20 minute allotted time frame. thus the shutoff happened with no heat in the flue to help clear and the unit pressure backpuffed through the airwash inatkes into the room. its a really wierd scenario, but possibe under these unusual conditions. had the poster been awake at the time the unit shut of or hit the e-2 fail to start , he would have been able to simply hit the on button and the 20 minute clock would have reset and with a fire already started the unit would easily have made proof of fire ontime and would have run with no problems.

i want to be clear that i do not fault the poster , i have done exactly what he did myself although i havent had as low a start temp in the past, so i could in his place have experienced the exact thing he did had i come home to a very cold house started the unit and gone to bed like i have in the past. the important thing is that the issue has been identified and now both he and i have learned what brought it about. it should be noted that in the 15+ years i have worked on these units i have not seen this particular scenario before so when i say it was a fluke thing i mean it.

 

[Biglumber]

My old whitfield cascade did this. Smoke detectors did not go off even though the basement was full of acrid smoke. I mean ACRID.

Similar issue with startup. Seems the stove smoldered, did not fire then went into shut down since it didn't detect fire.

The blower shut down while the pile was still smoldering. Left a black puddle on the floor.

I replaced it with a englander summers heat which is similar to geek's model. Now I check for fire after 10 minutes when starting. If it goes out and I don't have time to babysit it, I wait until morning to fire it back up.

That smoldering pellet smoke is terrible.

I don't see it as a fluke.

Mike at ESW, if proof of fire is not met during startup, I think the shutdown blower time should be 45 to 1 hr until it shuts off. If proof of fire has been met, then normal shutdown time has always worked for me. Just a thought.

Peace