Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wood stove setting off Carbon monoxide detector

Usually in the morning after fires burned out. Open the door to get it going again and they start beeping. First floor and in the loft above.

Cabins down in a hollow and low pressure always makes it tough to get it to draw. Englander catalytic stove, though I run it bypassing that option.

Never had a problem with other stove I had in the trailer on the same location before I built my cabin.

Chimney tall enough?

Chimney is +/- 15'

I took the batteries out of my co detector. All that beeping was giving me a headache and making me tired.

dassa,

CO detector beeping can make you tired but CO will make you tired ... and then dead.

I have had the pleasure to see people who have been dead for a few days due to CO (and the lack of a CO detector). No trouble at all to determine they were seriously and permanently dead.

Just tired is probably better.

I am no expert on wood stoves or fireplaces but if I remeber correctly the chimney should be at least three feet higher than the highest point of the roof within a certain radius. I think it is six feet or so. In your case it would be the peak of the roof. That might give you more draw. Just saying.

+/- 15 feet doesn't mean diddly. Extend the the chimney further above the peak.

Yep....at least two feet above ten feet away was what I was taught. Try sticking a 1' piece of double wall on there.

2' higher than anything at a round...try a different detector... Or die....

???? at a round ??? Doesn't make sense .

Alaska jargon ?

If it only happens when you light a cold stove , it sounds like you just have a weak draft when lighting a cold stove, next time you do this try opening/cracking a door in the house to help increase the draft in the pipe. Chimney looks fine to me, however when you use a 90 deg outside run you don’t get as good of a draft compared to a vertical straight run, elbows chug the flow some and the pipe is cold.

Nice cabin!

Before I light my stove when the chimney is cold I throw in a couple of loose pieces of news paper and lit it burn up, the heats starts the chimney to draw.

Burning coal, I once had a high CO situation. Never happened again.
It was a real warm spring day, the sun was shinning on the chimney, there was a double handful of hot coal in the furnace.
I believe the temp. differential was too low, or even reversed, and a downdraft was created.
I can home to the alarm going off and the reading was high.
Of course,I walked around to find the source. Took deep breath, ran to the basement and opened the door.
I knew better, but ???


Lightning blew that chimney off, the new one is about 2' taller

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This.

I am not familiar with that stove. On mine, I open the ash pan door a few minutes before a reload. This gives unlimited air to the coals, making them flare up, increasing draft and heat to light the new fuel. Is there a way to increase air before you open the loading door?

Some stove manufacturers call for 18' chimney, minimum.....

Crack window or door, get some pieces of fire starter logs to help fire get going.

^^^THIS X2^^^

I had the same set up with a stove problem that was similar. It was a real MoFo to get it to draw, but once I got it all heated up, it would burn for days.

Even though I was right on the chimney specs, I ended up adding a 2' section to the top. But yours looks good.

If the heat was on in the house, it would literally pull air through the chimney. The basement door was next to the stove and I would crack it open and I could get it to draw.

Light the fire and leave the stove's door open. Once you get it to draw, close the outside door. As the stove heats up, slowly close the stove door a little at a time until it's fully closed. It would take me a 1/2 hour on cold days to get it closed.

After you get the temperature up to running speed, close the by-pass and get the flow going through the catalytic combuster.

After that gets hot (glowing red), then you can start to turn down the air flow and control the running temperature. When it was hot, I could control the temp like a fine tuned engine.

add another 2 or 4 ft, due to elbow and all outside vertical (colder).