Ventis venting issue

[Ctwoodtick]

I have a castle, serenity pellet stove in a basement install that I’ve used for the last five or six years or so. Because of the location of the basement install, I have a T clean out about 4 inches or 5 inches from the hearth surface. It makes her a real pain in the ass for sweeping things out. When I do sweep things out, I take off the cap of the cleanout and sweep into the bag that I tried to attach. I’m sure there’s a better way to do it, but anyway.

I noticed especially this year that my cap for the T was not gonna fit right onto the clean out. It’s always been a little bit challenging to push that cap up into place and then screw down the band clamp, but this morning it was gonna be a no-go.… Just too tight. I’ve currently switched out that cap with the cap that is on the outside venting, which in theory would be a match.


Interestingly, Ive noticed that periodically some soot will somehow escape the vent and fall to the hearth behind the stove underneath the T. This is regardless of the cap that I’m using. You might be able to see the pictures that I currently have the outside cap on the inside venting and vice versa.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

One more thing I wanted to add. Today is the first day that I’ve used the stove this season. it’s been on for about three hours or so, and I noticed what smells like a potporri smell combined with wood pellet smell. it’s not smoky in the basement whatsoever, still appears to otherwise be functioning fine, and the carbon monoxide detectors I have in the basement and rest of the house are all reading zero. Initially, I thought it might just be the smell of dust burning off the stove after the season, but it does seem a bit odd. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[johneh]

My clean-out cap inside the house at the stove has
leaked for as long as I have had the stove installed
I use Hi -Temp silicon tape to seal it removable and
reuseable

 

[Ctwoodtick]

My clean-out cap inside the house at the stove has
leaked for as long as I have had the stove installed
I use Hi -Temp silicon tape to seal it removable and
reuseable

thanks for the input. It’s odd, the smell in the basement is similar to what I smell outside from exhaust. Not sure what is going on

 

[johneh]

Your Tee Cap is leaking a little
Seal it with tape or silcone

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Your Tee Cap is leaking a little
Seal it with tape or silcone

Will do, going to run to Lowe’s in a few min

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Your Tee Cap is leaking a little
Seal it with tape or silcone

I’ll ask a dumb question here – where should I put the tape on the cap? I think I have a good idea, but wanted to ask to be sure.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I’m at Lowe’s, and I’m not finding the high temperature tape. I’ll have to order from Amazon. in the meantime, do you think that putting some foil tape in the cap area suffice? Not sure how hard that stuff would be to remove afterwards.

 

[johneh]

You tape the joint between the cap and pipe
Yes you can try foil but it must be put on without wrinkles
and is hard to remove
That is why most prefer silicone tape

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Took another trip over to Home Depot and they have the silicone tape. It says it’s good to 500°. I’ll let you know how it all goes. Thanks again!

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I used the silicone tape. Still getting more of a smoke smell in the basement than I had last year. I ordered some more so I can seal up the other inside vent connections. Like previous years, I’ve always gotten a bit of smoke smell when starting it up, but the smell doesn’t to seem to dissipate like it used to.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

As I think about it, when I went outside, I noticed what looked like old grass material was being blown against the outside vent screen. I will check the outside flue for any nests or activity that could have blocked the flue at all. That and I did add a makeshift extra screen that adds to that vent exit to eliminate birds getting in. I will remove that as well to see if that and/or anything that may have got in the pipe is causing the smoky smell inside.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

If checking the outside venting doesn’t show any blockage, I will silicone tape the other seams in the venting. Not sure how hot the metal connection between stove and inside venting is but I would figure the outside of that pipe/connection is less than 500 degrees. I will do a more careful smoke test given that I’ve always gotten a bit of smoke on start up. Maybe that would help know what’s going on.
It’s weird, I smell an exhaust smell in the room similar to smell outside but no visible smoke inside and CO detector in stove room and upstairs reading zero. That’s said, I realize that it’s a pretty clean burn and visible smoke may not occur if coming into the room.Something doesn’t seem quite right though. I left a message with the local stove place to schedule them to take a look in the event that I can’t figure it out.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Ok- I spent a bunch of time with doing detective work with the pellet stove this evening. First, I checked the outside vent for nests,etc……nothing. I then stuck my phone into the outside T to snap a pic of the horizontal section through the wall. Actually saw a bunch of soot that I must have missed when I swept. At least 1/4 to 1/3 of the vent was blocked. Got that cleared…felt hopeful, and started up the stove. Same smoky exhaust smell.

Then I took off the sides to the stove to investigate. Saw a bunch of sawdust from years of pellet spill mishaps-cleaned that up as best I could. Then I got to hi temp silicone taping the joint from stove to vent which looked like it was poorly sealed with RTV originally. I then sealed the next joint up. I had sealed the inside T cap yesterday and ran out of tape this evening otherwise I would have taped the remained couple joints. So next I turned the lights off and did a smoke test shining a flashlight on
the connections. Upon startup of the stove, the sealed connections seemed fine, but the unsealed joints smoked pretty good. The smoke dissapated once the fan kicked on into higher gear. About 1.5 hours into the stove burning now and I only smell a slight chemical smell, which I’m guessing is some off gassing of the silicone tape. It is rated for 500 degrees and don’t think any part of the venting is getting to that temp.

This is a definite improvement from yesterday where my basement smelled like pellet exhaust. I have more hi temp silicone tape coming on Thursday and will seal up all inside joints.

I think for tonight, I’ll turn the stove off and put on the electric heat in the basement to keep the outside wall pipes warm. After the smoky smell yesterday, I’m a bit hesitant to run the stove with work still left to do to seal it up. Supposed to be low 20’s overnight. Probably not pipe freezing weather quite yet, but I’d prefer to not test that out too much. I will run the pellet stove more tomorrow to see how it goes and will run overnight if no smoke smell (after startup, that is) and CO meter continues to read 0.