Thank you Brother Bart. My hubby thinks I'm paranoid as it is but when I showed him these posts and the one earlier this month too, he heard me out. We have both had fires we started (usually cold starts) where we think its going good only to come back in the living room a few minutes later to it going out, just smoldering. I then, usually pull the damper out to try to get it back up. If that can lead to this blow back, then what SHOULD I do if my fire goes out to prevent this from happening? Is it better to open the door? Sorry for all the questions but if this has happened to many of you long time burners, a year old burner can't be too careful
a cold start is far less likely to have this type of pre-combustion, a fair amount of heat is required, a "hot restart" from a bed of coals allowed to get really charged up then cut off suddenly will make this a risk, but if you are unsuccessful in a cold start scenario its not likely to have enough kinetic energy built up to flash ignite.
in case of a failed cold start simply start by opening the draft control all the way and watch for a minute or so, if the fire does not build on its own accord especially if you have a lot of smoke which is rolling around in the stove but not wanting to get up the chimney you may need more heat in the flue , take your hairdryer and switch it on high, use it to warm your pipe coming out of the stove top to help get heat into the flue , may take a few minutes but eventually it will start to evacuate smoke. now , if the stove is still cool to the touch you could carefully crack the door if opening the draft doesn't do it but don't do it if the stove is hot. allow the smoke to be pulled up the flue until it clears with the door opened just a pinch, then attempt to refire if it doesn't catch on its own.
