Don't forget to clean your chimney hood

[FatJay]

I got home and threw a few logs on the fire and opened it up to get the temp up. After about 10 minutes I heard creaking and the sound sort of like rain on tin. I went out and looked up at the chimney and saw this:

Spewing fire all over the roof. Paniced I closed the front valve on the fireplace making it air tight, and went out and checked. It had stopped, but I had no idea what had happened, as I just swept the chimney a few weeks ago. So I took off the hood and cleaned the crap off and dropped a rope down after it cooled. Rope went strait down and I tied it to my brush and pulled the brush up and hten back down. Perfectly clean, no buildup. My only guess is I forgot to clean the top of the hood. I cleaned everything up and turned it up again, and there's no problem for now. I'm keeping an eye on it, but it scared the death out of me. Completely disassembled everything from the stove tot he hood, there's not a spot of buildup anywhere. There wasn't any buildup to begin with except a tiny bit on the underside of the top. Never seen anything like that before in my life.

 

[Zeus103363]

Glad it didn't get out of hand! I'm totally surprised you grabbed a camera! I love pictures but I would have been " in the zone" putting that fire out!

 

[FatJay]

Thanks. I actually didn't grab my camera. I ran inside and closed the air vent and grabbed my phone in case I needed to call emergency services. I went back out and saw it subsided, so I went back in and opened the air vent and went out and saw it again, and took the picture iwth my phone. Then I went in and closed it and got my ladder to get up there and see what was going on. I have no idea how it happened, I've been burning at various intensities for the past week and nothing of the sort happened, but then this. Also my stove pipe that leads outside was glowing red hot at one point. It could have been ugly. Still I disassembled every part of hte stove and chimney and made sure it was spotless before starting it up again. Been burning for a few hours with no issues, so I'm confident that it's ok now.

 

[trophyhunter]

Take it you have a 90* through the wall and into a T and up. Suppose that fire started inside the smokepipe after the stove and before the wall pass through?

I wonder as it sounds like it being red hot that's where the fire started, glad you caught it in time at any rate.

 

[FatJay]

It's completely horizontal out the back of the stove and out the wall, then T and strait up. But if there was a fire there'd have to be something to burn. When I took it apart I didn't find anything.

 

[blades]

Ya didn't find anything because it burned up. You had a type of flue fire. Pure horizontal exhaust from stove is a bad install (sorry there should always be a rise from the stove to chimney even if it is only a few degrees). Likely burned too cool or slow fires and creosote built up in the system, then when you when all out you lit it off, as you had recently cleaned the system that is what likely saved your tail. Much better to run a series of small hot fires than a big load smoldering in shoulder season.

 

[FatJay]

Sorry it's not *exactly* horizontal. The pipe comes out of the top rear of the stove, not strait out the back, and it's a 45 degree angle up for about 4 inches, then switches to horizontal. However i have no idea if that's enough to make a difference.

 

[trophyhunter]

Oh it helps, anything is better than straight out the back for draft purposes. Are you using a single wall smoke pipe connected to the insulated pass through section?

I changed mine from single wall to double wall DSP smoke pipe from the stove, up a few feet and the 90* elbow to the adapter and the insulated pass through section. That inner stainless DSP pipe stays much hotter and cleaner than single wall did, just doing that significantly improved my stove performance with better draft.

 

[FatJay]

The pipe that goes out the wall is insulated, ID is about 5" where-as OD is about 8". The 45 degree angle is mostly part of the stove with a little piece bolted on to return it to a horizontal run. I take the circular metal plate off the top for access to run my brush up the 45 bit to the horizontal, and can run it clear out to the T.

 

[trophyhunter]

What gets me is the fact you sound very judicious and mindful of keeping things in good order and maintained. Yet you have a fire in a system that is well looked after and not neglected and then I see people burning stoves for ten years that don't own a brush and rods and aren't about to call anyone to clean anything for them.

Their homes miraculously still stand.

How's that for odds? Least you were home and caught it, that was quite the fireworks show coming out the top.

 

[FatJay]

Maintenance is easy. 30min a year to prevent your house from burning down? Yes, I think I can be bothered with that. Still dumb that I forgot to clean the crud out of the hood on top and could have cost me a great deal. It won't happen again, for sure. But the way it's set up, it's incredibly easy to clean. I drop a rope down from the top and go down pull it down, as I have an opening outside. From the inside I take a plate off the top of hte stove and push the brush back and it goes and pushes everything out. At most 30min if I'm seriously taking my time.

Had it continued like that, there would only be threat if hot pieces came out and lit my roof on fire(no leaves or debris), which I think it supposed to be unlikely. My chimney is detached from my house, spaced 4-6" away all the way up, not in the wall.

 

[Fred Wright]

If memory serves there was a conversation here recently about chimney cap screens becoming crudded up. I remember because our situation is like yours. Through the wall prefab chimney.

The screen on ours got nearly clogged halfway through the season last year, our first year burning. From what I understand, the wood we were using wasn't as well-seasoned as it should've been. The guy who sold it to us said it was fully seasoned... but it wasn't.

I keep an eye on the cap screen now. If it looks like it's getting cruddy I pull out the extension ladder, climb up with a wire brush and clean it. We're burning wood we cut ourselves now and I know it's well-seasoned. Haven't had to fuss with the flue cap yet.

 

[FatJay]

I don't have a screen, never did. Should I?

 

[mountainmandan]

I don't have a screen, never did. Should I?

The screen is just to keep squirrels out.

Dan

 

[brenndatomu]

Glad to hear you caught it and are OK! Now, STEP AWAY FROM THE STOVE! DO NOT LOAD ANOTHER LOG IN THIS THING! You will be making an insurance claim in the near future if you continue doing what you have been doing, assuming you are alive to do so! I remember a couple guys telling you in your last thread, http://www.arboristsite.com/firewood-heating-wood-burning-equipment/214221.htm that you are making a ton of creosote and are gonna have a fire, I think DEL called it first, so he gets the point.

If your cap was bad enough to catch, then I'm saying the fire started down in the pipe, the creosote just all burnt away in the fire, that's why everything looked so clean in the rest of the system. So, we can know for absolute certainty that you have a creosote problem because in forementioned thread, you said that you checked the pipe a few weeks ago, before starting to burn this fall, and it was clean except for a ton of creosote in the bottom. That stuff laying in the bottom was previously all through your pipe, it just drys up and falls off during the summer months. And now you are to the point of a fire 3 weeks later?! Stop, just stop, PLEASE! Have your fiance read this, she'll make you stop! :msp_biggrin:

Anyways, after further review, I think I see PART of the problem. You said, in said previous thread, that you load 'er up and cut the air back before going to bed, I think you said something about "a nice smoldering fire of about 300-350 degrees." Well, I noticed in the pic of your stove, that the thermometer is on the stovetop. A temp of 300-350* should be on the single wall pipe behind the stove, not the stove top. The stovetop should be more like 600-700*.

I would get rid of this stove, get something easier to control, make SURE that your wood is dry, and then, before lighting another fire, sit down, maybe on the long Thanksgiving weekend, and read everything that you can find on AS about safe burning techniques.

Don't take this wrong, I'm not trying to belittle, a lot of us on AS didn't know any better BA (before AS) either. I think there's more than one fire story on here!

If I have any of my facts wrong, please, anybody feel free to jump in! Stay safe man! Your sentence is...back to propain heat for 1 month for you! You are dismissed. :hmm3grin2orange:

Oh, and the cap screens, when you have a creosote factory, they plug up every few days and make loading the stove a smoky job! :after_boom:

 

[cantoo]

Fatjay, I agree you need to stop using that stove immediately. Like I said in the other thread there are guys on here that live close to you let one of them take a look and offer a 2nd opinion. It doesn't hurt to have a new set of eyes look at your setup. Otherwise your next chimney fire will look like this. I bought my parents house and the 1st thing I did was install anew stainless chimney. When I took the old chimney pipes out the wood was all black, if it had gotten air it would have burnt the house down. I couldn't convince my Dad that it was a fire waitng to happen. I showed him inside the walls and he couldn't believe it never burnt. View attachment 262503