Ever since we installed the wood burning stove back in the house, we have been having issues.
With smoke. And because of that, it smelled like a campfire in the house. Yuck.
From what we could tell, not enough draft was being created to pull smoke up the chimney, so it would come back down into the house through the chimney. Which made for a rather smokey living environment at times.
And because of that (and the fact the Husbear has been burning green wood and not seasoned), the chimney was getting quite a buildup of creosote. You know, that bad bi-product stuff that can be highly flammable…
Well that’s no good either! Argh!
After doing some research, we found out about a product that would help create an artificial draft. So we ordered a Tjernlund Auto-Draft Inducer to install in the chimney.
Basically, it’s just a fan that pushes air up the chimney to help create a draft.
Installing it wasn’t the easiest of feats. I had to cut a hole in the chimney wall (which is when we discovered the little issue with the creosote build up), and then do a song-and-dance to get it to fit just right.
Eventually I got it installed, and we did a test burn.
The unit itself didn’t seem that well sealed: it leaked smoke from the welded seams! So I sealed those with fire barrier sealant. After that, I’d say it works!
There’s no smokey smell in the house, no back draft, and hopefully, less creosote build-up in the chimney system.
The only sucky thing is it takes electricity to make the inducer go, so if the power goes out, we’ll get smokey again. But we do have a generator, so I guess that’s always an option.
All this just to decrease the usage of the central heating system in the house.
Until next time...
How often do you sweep the chimney? We’re required by our insurance company to have our stove’s chimney pipe swept once a year, so we feel pretty confident that there’s no real buildup in there. And, thankfully, the draft is good. But I really get tired of that fine layer of ash that settles on everything in the living room. All. Winter. Long. I think it comes mainly from cleaning out the ash pan every day.
The entire chimney system is new, and was installed in late October. So all that buildup occurred in the one month we used the wood stove. Which is why I was so concerned with what I saw when I opened the stove up. A big part of that problem was caused by the lack of draft, from what I have read. And the green wood the Husbear was burning.
I don’t remember the ash issue when we had the stove originally when we purchased the home, but I wasn’t a fan of it all to begin with.
We used to have an adjustable flu on ours. If it was closed, the room would fill with smoke. Also, we had to crack a window or something in the house, it was too tightly sealed to get enough air in the house to go up the chimney.
I still admire you two ‘doing this yourself’ but the installments and the updates. Clever men, both of you.
Thank you. We both grew up “handy”, if in different ways. So we tend to try to do things ourselves.