Guys, can anyone offer some ideas? Our woodstove was not burning as well last spring since it needed a good cleaning after the season. Now, nothing will stay burning in it at all. I do the usual routine of some paper and dry pine kindling to get it hot and everything burns out and this is with the flue in even a wide open position. Can anyone offer thoughts and ideas please?

Thanks!

Screened top of chimney clogged with ash, no draw up flue

More cowbell.

Airflow restricted somewhere- - - -try removing whatever top is on the chimney and see if things improve. I eventually went to a cone shaped rain deflector instead of the fancy louvered diffuser- - - -made a world of difference in the draw.

Is your wood dry enough? Do you use a moisture meter?

Sorry, yes woodstove not Woodstock. It seems to burn out whether it’s dry wood or slightly wet or wood I know obviously wetter wood is not what we’re looking for but this year in Maine was so wet in the spring even so it dries out or rather the fire goes out with even dry pine kindling, so yeah, I think the issue is a draw issue. I just don’t know how to solve this. I guess I’ve reached out to or I will be reaching out to the company that services stove and because it was working fine last spring. I’ll be a little slow and since they’ve cleaned it Seem to work at all so appreciate the input fellas thank

I made the cap for my top stack, I made it much higher and therefore much wider than store bought to keep rain and snow out. Works very well, if that’s your problem.

Sort of sounds like it’s not drafting from the inside?
I’ve seen them with the top plugged where they still lit and of course filled the room with smoke, if it won’t even stay lit you may have to look to the inside draft?

Osky

Are you getting smoke out of the chimney?

20 coats of Tung oil should do it....

Is the room/house sealed so tight that there is no/little incoming air to allow draft airflow?

What make/model stove is it?

You need to get a moisture meter. Bring a piece into the house, let it set at room temp. Take it outside the next day, split it and test the freshly split face. You need that wood below 17 percent.
Sounds like you are burning some 27 percent wood.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/General-Tools-Instruments-Digital-Test-Meter/3136919

We are stardust, We are golden... We are billion-year-old carbon... And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...

Must be a baffle somewhere choked if you say your flue is ok?

Hold the door to the stove open for a bit

This.

Woodstove with a flue? No pipe?

I got a old fisher that can be a bitch

It is not one of those that has a catalytic converter is it? The feds can screwup things without even trying.

Truth

#1 issue to check (or have serviced) is the chimney and topper... Something's blocking the air flow.. Could be a nest at the top? Or some blockage for sure would be my guess..

LMAO... Got THAT right...

I don't like the cat, never have had one. Simpler is better than complicated.

Pulled two mummified wood ducks from my mother-in-law's stove pipe...

Did your stack get cleaned? If there is little/no draw after that perhaps something happened at that time.

Pretty basic, it's either drawing air or it ain't ...... is there anyway possible that it isn't "that cold" outside? If the air temp outside is close or warmer than inside it may not pull very well.

Could also be on the inlet side....something plugged up.... this should be evident if it burns good with the door cracked.

Another pro tip, I quit fuggin with paper and tiny kindling years ago.... I use a plumbers MAP torch.... can point it up the pipe for a few seconds to warm up the chimney, usually only need 2-3 MAP bottles per winter....pretty cheap.

Yup, chimney sweeps sound old fashion, but you should clean it out every 3-5yrs. An air tight house won't draft the stove.

Speaking of dirty chimneys, I've seen 5ft flames out the top of the chimney (at night) when the creosote starts a chimney fire...it can get hot enough to burn through the seams between the fire brick and start the attic on fire.

Something is impeding the air flow. Could be a nest, dead animal, probably not soot if it was cleaned last spring.

We burn about 5 cords per year. I sweep my own chimney. Do it usually two or three times per year. I know it's time to sweep it when I open the stove door and a little smoke flows out.

If the chimney sweeper didn't pull the baffles out of the stove before sweeping, you might have a pile of soot on top of the baffles, blocking airflow into the flue. (assuming you have a baffled stove).

Tru story 😂😂 we just had built our house and it was a few months before we hooked up our stove.Somebody had a genius idea to stuff a wal mart bag over the flu pipe.It won’t there when we hooked it up to try it LOL

Good thing to check! A fresh air intake is a good upgrade to a fireplace or wood burning stove.

You got one of these ?

+1.
Assuming you have a modern high efficiency stove with a baffle and secondary burn air pipes just under the top surface.

If the pipe has no clean out Tee, in order to clean the chimney, you must disconnect the pipe right above the stove and put a catch bag on to capture the soot. If not, the soot will accumulate on top the baffle and partially block the air flow from the stove into the stove pipe and chimney.

Old school non baffled stoves would let the chimney sweep soot drop straight into the stove.

Bought one of those welded Chinese models with the glass (?) door.
Swept the stove pipe every year and it just got worse and worse....until it would only burn the starter blocks and smoke up the house! It was horrible! 😡
Decided to replace the pipe between the stove and the ceiling.
That's when we found a baffle just below where the stove pipe attaches!
Dude had FOUR YEARS of soot, ash and creosote build up that was blocking the exit from the fire box! 🤯
Shop vac'd that crap out, reassembled the stove and it worked like a champ!!!

Each fall, we sweep the pipe from the cap to the damper above the stove.
THE NEXT DAY, after all that crap has had a chance to settle down, we pull the pipe between the stove and the ceiling and vacuum all the crap off of that baffle!
We've never had another problem! 😉👍

Check to see if there is a baffle in the stove between the fire box and the smoke exit.
On our stove, the ONLY way to get to the baffle to clran it is through the stove pipe connection.

BTW!
Last year was our year to change the Triple Wall pipe up through the attic. Over $360??? 🤯
Single wall pipe between the stove and the ceiling was beginning to look bad.
A local HVAC supply house asked me if I'd like the "telescoping" pipe!
Huh?

Attaches to your stove and an outer pipe slides up and screws to the ceiling flange!
Makes changing out the stove pipe a breeze! ....and doesn't cost but pennies more than that old "cut-to-fit" and assemble pipe!

The easiest way is to screw the outer pipe to the ceiling flange, then pull the inner pipe down and slip it over the stove flange.

This.

A chimney running up the outside wall unininsulated can get so cold that a draft is hard to establish.

Unless it's rain soaked or been submerged in a lake, even the greenest of woods will burn.
You just gotta have a hot enough starter. 😉

Our stove is a Lopi 1750. It's pretty easy to maneuver the baffle bricks (four of them) out of the way, before sweeping the pipe. Then all the soot ends up in the firebox where it's easy to shovel out.

No, it’s a lever on bottom left of the stove which is moved horizontally, left to right. Left is wide open and right is mostly closed. Just started another fire in it and it got going and died out. I believe as well it has to do with airflow. I’ll figure out the make/model and post it up.

You need more air flow gotta have hit chunkin like a train then back it off

I’m betting you got some ashes somewhere while cleaning it that blocked or partially blocked the airflow. This ultimately affects the drafting ability . Symptoms of poor draft are what you describe is happening to the stove.

Sitka deer;
Good evening to you all Sitka, I hope the day went well for you and the weather is getting a wee bit better up in your neck of the woods.

Regarding wildfowl/ wild foul in the chimney, we've had at least one bat and a couple birds end up in the wood stove chimneys over the years.

One fine summer day a couple years back, I was working in the shop and could not for the life of me figure out what the oddball noise was. As it turned out some variety of small sparrow sized bird had gone down the pipe and was bouncing around inside.

I took it out, wiped it off the best I could, gave it a bit of water to drink and left it safely on one of the woodpiles to recover.

Strange things end up in chimneys over the summer though, that's been our experience.

All the best to you all and good luck to the OP on his no draw problem.

Dwayne

There is something interfering with the draw which may require some pipe disassembly to find it. Check and make sure the chimney is at least 3ft higher than your peak.

Once you figure things out and get it working properly, you'll want to load it up and run it at full-throttle for about 30 minutes once a week to keep things clear.

Also avoid single-wall pipe.





One of those came with my house. Took the PoS out first thing.

I bet you got one of them old time Ashley wood heaters

I can take a few pics if someone will post them. PM me an outside email addy.

Once had a huge swarm of bees come down my chimney and one after the other marching through the grout lines.

Wife was allergic to bee stings and bees were flying everywhere.

Pandemonium ensued.

My stove is a six year old Jotul Oslo, cost $2500. Wonderful stove. I have 15 feet of single wall pipe inside the house and this stove draws like a champ. 12 feet of pipe outside, it is of course double wall stainless steel.
These new high-efficiency stoves WILL NOT burn with wet wood. I have a moisture meter and wood above 17 percent will give you trouble. If you have the fire roaring, and put in an armful of 27 percent moisture wood, the fire will just smolder and then go out.

The old time stoves like the Fisher Mama Bear would burn any wood, wet or dry.

In most houses there are enough air leaks, around windows, doors etc. to supply sufficient air to the wood stove.

I still use the old time stove. Fisher Mama Bear, it's a great stove with no frills and works great after all these years.

Homemade for us, 3' of single wall pipe to chimney then up from basement through 2 levels[chimney has 1100+/- block].
Clean it myself annually.
The past couple of years I've burnt quite a bit of 'less than desirable' wood and it showed as I was getting buildup in the pipe at the entrance to chimney, enough to push smoke out every time the stove door was opened. Had to clean several times a season.

Will it burn if you leave the door open?

Youngest bought a home with a fireplace.
On assignment out of state, the kid asked us to go down and open up the house.
Had a coworker go check the house before we drove 550 miles.
A barn owl had come down the chimney, s#¡t all over the house and was inconsiderate enough to die and scatter feathers and owl bones all over the place! 😖
We even found owl "parts" in the ceiling fan light fixture!

Fast forward to the next winter in south Texas.
Kid is at work, we're in bed! Sudden horrendous noise in the living room! 😳
Gun in hand, I go screaming into the living room to find a frantic barn owl banging into walls and generally causing havoc!
Exhausted, the bird finally dropped to the floor after banging into a window. I was able to throw a hoodie over the bird and take it gently out into the night! WHEW!
Spent the next day shaping a wire screen to keep owls out of the chimney!