We have a wood stove in our house. My husband likes to use it to supplement the furnace in our house. He claims that it saves us money on propane and he enjoys using it.
I, however, hate the thing. The heating is inconsistent. It may be warm when we go to bed but it's out by morning(plus the heat has been turned down also). The heat is not evenly distributed so while it may be warm in one area of the house, it's freezing in another due to the heat being turned down. The space heaters in the bedrooms almost negate the savings in propane!
But I can live with the less heat if I have to, my true dislike of the stove comes from the smoke smell. The smoke smell is everywhere. It's in our clothes, suitcases, everywhere. When I visit my parents, my mom tells me that she can smell the smoke. When I change my clothes elsewhere I smell it on them. I spend so much extra time washing the smell out of our clothes and trying to find some method of getting the smoke smell out. I've tried boiling vinegar and have just bought RoomShock and Bad Air Sponge Odor Neturalent . I plan on using those over the weekend to see if they work. Another problem is that my husband insists that he can't smell any kind of smoke and that he likes the smell of wood smoke. I've told him that it's not wood smoke, it's a stale musty type which is almost like cigarette smoke! Plus he doesn't like the smell of the air fresheners I use.
I'm tired of fighting with him about using the stove, especially now that winter's here and we need to save money. I'd work with him if I only had a way to get rid of the smoke smell. Any suggestions? The simpler the better. I can't air out the place during winter and I don't have time to repaint and sanitize every room in the house.
Has anyone tried the products that I mentioned or have any good suggestions as to how to get rid of and keep the smoke smell out of my house?
If you're getting the smoke smell in the house you might also be getting Carbon Monoxide. Do you have a detector????
Have you had a chimney sweep in to maintain your woodstove?
That would be my very first question. We have a woodstove, and have it serviced every other year or so. I am not certain, but because of the smell you are describing, it's possible you have a real creosote buildup, which is similar to the 'tar' described from smoking cigarettes. The creosote will coat the inside of your stovepipe,and if it's always warm, it will emit that smell. It can also catch fire inside the stovepipe, which is very dangerous.
I'd call a local woodstove retailer and ask to talk to someone experienced. Explain what you are smelling. They may have some insight into what the problem could be. Our stove has a catalytic block and we can only burn black and white newspaper and hardwood in it or the block gets clogged. If you have a stove with this option on it and have a clogged catalytic block (this is the smoke you'll get inside the house), it will need to be replaced. When ours got clogged (after 5 plus years) we were able to remove it and clean it. (But it was a pain, for sure, because you have to clean the stove spotless inside and then take it apart. We just did it again a couple weeks ago.)
Also--and you've probably got this already--be sure to have a carbon monoxide detector in the same room as your woodstove. When our catalytic block clogged, we were upstairs with the stove buttoned up to burn for the night. Black smoke was coming out of our stove and we didn't even know it. If I hadn't gone downstairs to use the bathroom and discovered the problem, we could have died in our sleep. If you are smelling that much 'smoky' smell in the house, to the point it's affecting your clothing, there's reason to be concerned.
Something's wrong if you have a smoke smell in the house. The ventilation isnt working right. There's a little air damper that is on the stove, the smoke should be going out through the chimney and not into your house.
I just read this on a forum asking the same thing. "Sounds like your wood stove venting is plugged. When not in use, check the venting. It may have soot backup which can be dangerous/fire hazard. Wood stoves should not smell or leave a smokey smell if working properly. You need to call an expert to look at it."
Baking soda and vinegar can help from surfaces what I have read. As can bowls of activated charcoal.
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_remove-smell-baking-...
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_remove-smell-wood-sm...
Also, you can buy air purifyinging machines, almost like an space heater unit type thing. They can be pricey... so what's the point of spending money on an array of air purifiers... in order to save money on using the wood stove? And all that constant cleaning sounds like a headache!
http://www.air-purifiers-america.com/ppc-air-purifiers.as...
Goodness, I'd take an axe to the sucker :)
We have had woodstoves in most houses we have lived in (we used to live in Alaska where they are common) and if the woodstove is tight and used right you get zero wood smoke smell in the house. None. It is just like a nice heater. It sounds to me like something is wrong with your stove...or you are using it wrong perhaps? Do you clean it every year? Can you get a professional to come look at it. Anyway, something is definitely wrong bc we NEVER had this problem. Our last house in Alaska had a cool venting system. The wood stove was in the living room and up high was a big vent you could turn on that drew the really hot air into the back bedrooms. It was awesome. It cooled down the overly hot living room and warmed up those bedrooms...if only every house had something like this built in!
In addition to the excellent points already made, be aware that the fine particulates and other substances suspended in wood smoke are a health hazard. They become embedded in the lungs and slowly accumulate. Bad enough for you and your husband, but health researchers think the effect is more dangerous for young children, who will carry that pollution for a much longer time than you will.
Societies that burn a lot of wood for cooking fires indoors have high rates of lung disease. Perhaps the information in this article will help convince your husband that he's taking a risky approach to saving money:
Wood stoves can be a great help, but they are not working properly if you are getting a smoke smell in your house! Check the pipes, flue, chimney and stove itself. It is leaking somewhere and not properly vented.
Creosote from burning wood can build up in chimney flues and puts off toxic carcinogens. Heavy build up can also become hot and catch on fire.
Please check out your system before something dangerous happens. It is a fire hazard.
You need to take your stove pipes apart and clean them inside to knock out any build up, and be sure they fit properly so no leaks as well, may even need to be replaced.
Once smoke is in your house, clothes, the total environment becomes saturated, walls, woodwork, check your ceiling, it is probably gray looking. Damp wipe the walls and see the residue. Very difficult to impossible to get rid of the odor. Once you get stove and smoke leaks fixed, THEN you may need to paint walls and woodwork to cover the odor.
Years ago, I bought a bedroom set (wood pieces only) , from a friend who smoked cigars, though the furniture was in a spare/guest room upstairs in his house, the bedroom had actually never even been used, the set was saturated with that smokey cigar smell. No amount of cleaning or airing out took it away. To this day, 25 years later, it still has slight odor that is different than any other furniture and I use dryer sheets in the drawers to help with the smell. It was awful and everything I put in it, took on the odor.
Have your husband literally wash out his nostrils, if he can't smell the smoke. Some people who smoke, and/or live in smokey environment get used to it and they don't smell it. In my job, I sometimes have go to houses that reek so bad, my nose clogs up, can hardly breathe, eyes water and they don't even notice anything. Same with filthy animal ammonia excrement odors.
I feel for you!
There should never be the smell of wood smoke INSIDE your house. You may have a loose stovepipe or as others posted, you may have a creosote build-up in your pipe.
I spent 21 years living in a house with a wood stove as the only source of heat and NEVER smelled smoke in the house. My parents installed a forced air venting system to get the heat to all rooms of the house, so the heating was consistent.
But, my dad also climbed up onto the roof twice a year and cleaned out the chimney with the correct tools. There is a brush on a chain that is dropped into the chimney pipe and slowly pulled up. It's is dropped and pulled as many times as is needed to come up clean.
You shouldn't have a wood stove in your house if you do not know how to properly use/clean/care for it. That is where the danger of fire or carbon monoxide poisoning comes from.
I didn't read all the answers, but have you checked out a pellet stove?
I agree. As someone who grew up in a house that was heated with a wood stove, we never had any wood smoke smell in the house. One would never know from meeting us that we heated our house with wood.
If you have a wood smell in the house, you need to clean out the pipes of creosote--AND make sure that there are no loose pipes where the smoke might be getting into the house. THIS is very important--you don't play around with fire. You can get sick from the build up or, as one ;poster pointed out, you can have carbon monoxide poisoning. I would call and have a professional come out and clean the stove pipe/check out and make sure everything is okay. If the wood stove is fitted to go out of a chimney--is the chimney stable, or are there cracks in the bricks/how it's laid?
Another thing--what are you burning? Only burn DRY wood, never wet (it builds up creosote faster on the pipes, plus it smokes really bad), and never burn any other type of wood inside the house except for hardwood, or wood from trees (don't laugh; you'd be surprised how many people take any type of wood and burn it, to include old furniture that has lacquer and lead-based paint on it, or treated lumber that no one should breath in the fumes of when it's burning, etc.).
And while the guy's out cleaning and checking over your wood stove/fireplace--have him also talk to you about putting in a forced air venting system. It'll help enormously with heating the whole house--not just the area where the wood stove sits.
