Ever have a stove "pulse"

[AOD]

I was just over in my neighbors woodworking shop a few min ago and he had a pretty hot fire going in his stove, looked like a real basic thing whipped up out of 1/4" plate with a very poorly-sealing door with at least 3/8" gaps around it when latched. Anyways, I asked him why there was so much smoke in his shop and he said his stove was acting weird, then I saw it myself, while burning it would make a "thump thump thump" noise and every time it would thump it would puff smoke and sometimes fire out the gaps around the door! I told him it sounded like he wasn't getting enough air or had a partial blockage in his chimney, he has a block chimney thats maybe 15 feet high on an exterior wall. It wasn't that cold out, in the 30's today, and he had just loaded the stove down with lumber scraps. Seeing 6" flames shooting out the gaps around the door certainly didn't make me feel good, especially as he keeps his snow blower and gas cans in this room! I'm glad it wasn't my stove and I hope I don't hear the fire dept. pulling up to his shop anytime soon!

 

[husky455rancher]

woah that sounds a little dangerous to saw the least. i never had mine do what your describing but im new to wood stoves. last 2 years ive heated with an insert.

i actually replaced the door gaskit on my wood stove today. it failed the dollar bill test horribly. its real tight now hopefully it dosent compress too much and fail the test after a bit.

 

[AOD]

I know, it doesn't sound safe to me at all. I think he overloaded it with small stuff and it was starved for air. When I was in college I had a course about furnaces and boilers and the instructor said if you don't give a hot fire enough air, it will come and find it. I don't think the stove was glowing red, but he had some bright shop lites on so it would have to have been glowing pretty good to be seen easily. I told him he should put his gas can and snow blower in the other room of the building further away from the fire, and he seemed none too concerned, he is one of those "I've done it this way for XX years, why change now" people.

 

[Jkebxjunke]

in a word... BOOM!

 

[KsWoodsMan]

It happens on mine when the air/fuel load exceeds the available draft at times. Nothing even close to what you described but it will huff if a bunch of little stuff gets put in on hot coals in a hot stove but cool flue pipe.

Used to do it to with a barrel heater loaded with twigs too. If it is all 6" pipe have him look for a chimney blockage.

 

[wkpoor]

Its called stove farts. My old stove never did it but my new one will from time to time do the thumpy thump thing just lightly. Might even puff some smoke out the pipe seems. All I do to stop it is change my vent settings.

 

[MATTYB11]

Its called stove farts.

Now instead of blaming it on the dog I can just tell the wife it was the stove.

 

[Rookie1]

Now instead of blaming it on the dog I can just tell the wife it was the stove.

 

[KsWoodsMan]

I think I keep coming back for the unexpected laugh. :fart:

 

[chowdozer]

Poor exhaust draft and the fire can put out more exhaust than the pipe can draw. If I open the draft on mine all the way with a cold stove and pipe it will huff but not if the stove and pipe are warm.

Your neighbor either has a short stack, a horizontal run in his pipe or an uncontrollable intake.

 

[AOD]

He has a short stack, and from the best of my knowledge, this stove has no draft control, only a very crude stove door and a stack damper. I insisted that he check to see if his chimney is blocked but he kept telling me it was just fine. I would be freaking out if a stove I owned was doing that. He said he was burning a bunch of small junk wood, so if he said he put a :bunch" in there it means he packed it to the hilt. I bet it just wasn't getting the air it needed, and he probably used the door and latch to hold the wood scraps inside.

 

[huskymac]

Dragons breath

Years ago I worked in a cabinet shop that had a locally built Lincoln Wood Stove. It was a 3' sphere on a peddestal and had a 1' round door right at chest height. The dampener system worked very well! If you closed both intake and exhaust you could choke the fire completely out.

One morning some one closed the exhaust a little to tight. I was working across the shop maybe 30 feet away and noticed the stove gasping for air. Every few minutes it would build enough pressure to send a puff of smoke out the seams of the stack. The boss didn't want anyone else tending the stove so I just kept working. After about 15 minutes the bosses son walks over to the stove and opens the door.:monkey: WWWOOOOOSSSHHHH a 1 foot around 6 foot long flame thrower envelopes the poor guys head . :jawdrop: His eyes were big as dinner plates!! Most of his eyebrows and mustache were gone along with a lot of hair.

He was fine.

Still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

 

[Mike Van]

When I first lite the stove in my shop, it'll huff like that for the first few minutes, until the chimney & pipe gets warm enough to get the draft working. If I crack the door a half inch, it stops.

 

[saxman]

It is simply a draft problem. I got to see that years ago on a large steam boiler where I worked as a fireman. The oil fired boiler required an induced draft fan to be used when it was on-line, the other boiler was gas fired and did not require it. We switched the oil boiler on the line and forgot to turn on the extra draft fan. The big firing doors were vibrating and huffing and puffing smoke! It was pretty impressive but scary until we turned the fan on and it imeadiately stopped. We never forgot that again!

 

[mga]

It happens on mine when the air/fuel load exceeds the available draft at times. Nothing even close to what you described but it will huff if a bunch of little stuff gets put in on hot coals in a hot stove but cool flue pipe.

Used to do it to with a barrel heater loaded with twigs too. If it is all 6" pipe have him look for a chimney blockage.

i agree. sounds like excessive gasses building up because they can't escape fast enough. i'll bet the chimney outside is also puffing when that happens.

maybe he's over loading the stove?

maybe any dampers should be removed?

 

[doorstop]

Just a basic thing - the exhaust needs to be at least as open as the input is. Sounds like the input air is sortof pretty open.

 

[AOD]

maybe he's over loading the stove?

I am pretty sure he was, he was burning little crap all day and he would load whole armloads into it at a time. I am kind of scared of burning little stuff like that, when I have scraps to burn up I put a few in at a time, let them burn and then add more, I've gotten a stove close to 1000* burning too much of that stuff at once.

 

[Mr. Obvious]

Done it myself a few times in my wood shop. If you throw in too much quick burning stuff like cardboard or scraps, the fire just takes off and burns out all the oxygen, then as more comes in there is a mini explosion and fire shoots out the fresh air vents.

If you throw in a bunch of scaps its best to leave the door open somewhat to keep the air flowing in. Better yet don't throw in the scaps when the stove is cookin already.

 

[cmetalbend]

Other then the noise, my double barrel stove was acting the same way until recently. I was gettin alot of smoke back out the door.Draft seemed insufficient. I finally found the problem. I had a 6 inch horizontal pipe that was totally plugged with Creasote. And I mean PLUGGED. check out the pic. But beware, when I cleared and re-installed I still had alittle buildup in the upper barrel. The fire followed up into the barrel, (let's just say it got HOT). I had to put a fan on the out-put stove pipe to keep it from meltin til it burned itself clean. Now draft is great and I could leave the door wide open if I wanted to. No **** look at the pic.:angry2:

 

[Junkfxr]

When I build a fire in our USS 1500, I leave the ash pan door open untill it gets going good. Due to CRS, sometimes I forget about it untill the fire is really rocking, run back downstairs and shut the door, then it starts huffing like a steam locomotive for a few minutes, just lack of air from the bottom and sucking it back down the chimney, flaming up, burning out, flaming up, burning out, till it catches it's breath.