Stinky smoke

[Trevor Tahclep]

IMHO easy enough to resolve if it is the wood itself or is the stove or chimney causing this. Go to one of your local big box stores and purchase a couple of bundles or boxes of those factory pressed hard wood logs or bricks, burn them and follow the results and smells at various stages of the burn. These are extremely dry and have very little humidity in them, depending on the size of your firebox DO NOT put more than 2 or 3 pieces in your fire chamber as these burn extremely hot and you want to avoid damaging your stove. It will cost you $8.00 to $12.00 to perform this experiment and probably help identify the problem.

I once owned a home with a 30 - 32 foot exterior masonry chimney and this thing stank like heck, eventually creosote started weeping through the mortar between the bricks and interior tiles, got my answer there and then, sold that home before getting the chimney redone or getting a liner put in. Liquid creosote held in, accumulating and soaking in a masonry chimney smells as bad as the local garbage dump.

 

[sneefy]

IMHO easy enough to resolve if it is the wood itself or is the stove or chimney causing this. Go to one of your local big box stores and purchase a couple of bundles or boxes of those factory pressed hard wood logs or bricks, burn them and follow the results and smells at various stages of the burn. These are extremely dry and have very little humidity in them, depending on the size of your firebox DO NOT put more than 2 or 3 pieces in your fire chamber as these burn extremely hot and you want to avoid damaging your stove. It will cost you $8.00 to $12.00 to perform this experiment and probably help identify the problem.

I once owned a home with a 30 - 32 foot exterior masonry chimney and this thing stank like heck, eventually creosote started weeping through the mortar between the bricks and interior tiles, got my answer there and then, sold that home before getting the chimney redone or getting a liner put in. Liquid creosote held in, accumulating and soaking in a masonry chimney smells as bad as the local garbage dump.

What I'm smelling isn't creosote. I've burned mostly compressed logs and have only been in the home (new stove) for less than a year, with maybe 15 burns total.

If the air control is good, you can run several compressed logs. Just need to be on top of the air control. I can see if it gets away from you, could be overfired.