On Sat, 25 Oct 2014 11:33:47 -0400, J Burns
wrote:

On 10/23/14, 4:19 PM, Oren wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 12:56:59 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

I live in NW Washington. It rains a lot here, 69 inches so far this year, so
my firewood never gets real dry. Consequently, it produces a lot of smoke.
Compounding the problem is the length of the chimney; the distance from the
top of the stove to the top of the chimney above the roof is almost 25 feet.
I clean the chimney at least once every year and sometimes twice. Opening
the stove door almost always allows some smoke to escape unless the fire is
really hot and often a really hot fire is not necessary. So I'm stuck with a
smoky house. Is there some way (mechanical or otherwise) of creating a good
draft when it's necessary to open the stove door?


Do you stack the wood on a rack, keep it off the ground and cover it
with a tarpaulin while it seasons? That enhances moisture removal so
it burns more efficiently, less smoke, and better BTU.

If it's under an overhang on the sunny side of a building, the sun and
wind can help drying. If on two or three occasions when you reach into
the wood pile, you get a little bite and don't know what it was, take
care. The fourth time, the copperhead may run out of patience.

We don't burn wood now, but I do have Black Widow spiders. You can
bring in termites and other critters from fire wood. I burned Maple
while in the Adirondack Mts. of NY. I'd bring some seasoned wood into
the basement so it would dry further, removed from the rack outside,
and allowed some more drying out.

OP never mentioned what wood he burns.