Major issue with wood-stove - Need advice!

[newbury]

Mirror on a stick and a flashlight is a lot less money.

I'd be hard put to get a mirror on a stick past the 90 degree bends in that stove pipe.

 

[ruffdog]

Take the stove pipe off and go through the silver double wall pipe going through the brick wall with the mirror on a stick. Maybe a critter fell down the chimney being that it doesn't have a cap?

 

[ultrarunner]

Ask around and pay a good sweep to come out and evaluate... money well spent and peace of mind.

Back when I took classes and became a certified welder one of the projects to raise money for the community college was building wood stoves for sale.

Each class would build several and all were always pre sold...

It was a fun project... cutting the 1/4" and 5/16" plate and welding it up and adding the fire brick...

Probably gone by the wayside like most of my youth.

My brother had somewhat of a challenge when he bought his present home with a Lopi pedestal stove... it had been installed with a permit and yet most insurance companies wanted it removed as a condition of coverage.

He eventually went with a coop coverage and they sent out a stove inspector and all was good...

Nice little stove that really puts out the heat and they have plenty of free wood at the ranch...

Funny thing around here is no one seems to care about brick and mortar fireplaces... only manufactured stoves/inserts.

 

[MossflowerWoods]

Please people, I'm not an idiot, nor do I have a death wish for myself or my children, please minimize the histrionics.
As they said in my youth, save the drama for your mama...

#1 - I bought an infrared space heater last night at Lowe's to use in the basement and maybe other places for supplemental heat.

#2 - I found wood stove repair products at Lowe's also, a silicone caulk good up to 600 degrees that should allow me to make the loading door airtight, and a cement & mortar product good over 1000 degrees (suitable to fix fire bricks) which SHOULD fill the cracked & missing weld spots that prevent the unit from being airtight. I will not use it again until I can make it airtight, and then only under test conditions until I can safely starve a fire and properly control the burn by controlling airflow. No more smoldering embers stinking up (and poisoning) the house. OK?

#2b - Yes, when I am working again, I will call a chimney sweep, but it is flowing fine for now. when it dries out I will attempt to open the cleanout and check the pipe with a mirror and flashlight...

#3 - There was some sort of an inspection in the past.The widow told me specifically the metal plate above the horizontal pipe was mandated in some inspection, after which they got a clean bill of health.

This thread has been VERY helpful, I have learned MANY things, I hope to learn many more as well.

Please lets keep to the engineering side of this.

Thank you all again
David

 

[tcreeley]

That metal plate is a heat shield. It was a good idea. Fires in woodstoves are meant to burn and smolder. Even airtight stoves will do that. Actually they will hold the embers for a longer time that stoves that are not air tight. Non airtight tends to burn hotter and faster- uses all of the wood up and do not keep a steady heat coming- can be controlled through a damper in the stove pipe to adjust the draft.
Airtights can hold a slower rate of burn by shutting the air inlets down. Add a damper in the pipe and you can hold embers easily for 10 -12 hours for a steady heat.
Small loads of wood burned hot will help you keep your fires manageable and ensure they go out.
Stoves often smoke until they establish a warm draft. New wood on top of hot coals will smoke until the flame catches and the draft picks up.
All depends on the chimney.
Rule of thumb is on height of chimney: 2' higher than nearest point 10' away. (Measure from where it intersects the roof line. - A 1 in 4 roof has a foot of rise for every 4 feet of run. A 10 foot run requires a (10/4) a 2.5' height. Add 2' more and that's the chimney height - 4.5' above where it intersects the roofline.
Chimney caps might help with down draft, but a chimney without a cap is less likely to build up creosote at the top. (source of creosote chimney fires when the top becomes too restricted). I heat with wood only and keep a ladder handy so that I can clean up the cap 2x during the winter. Not having a cap can be an advantage.

If that chimney is solid steel- someday you might have a clean out door added outside - cut opening and weld in a bracket, add door.

Burning with wood is enjoyable. No two hookups are the same.

Goodluck

 

[MossflowerWoods]

My roof is 4/4.

There is a very rustic looking clean out under the deck where the chimney pipe goes into the ground...
A bolt and compression strap holds it in place, looks rusty.

Thanks,
David

 

[MossflowerWoods]

My roof is 4/4.

There is a very rustic looking clean out under the deck where the chimney pipe goes into the ground...
A bolt and compression strap holds it in place, looks rusty.

Thanks,
David

 

[almaryholm]

One X- SQUID (HM2) to another...have been through many stoves, burning wood since early 70's at home and managing state parks (37 years) that had wood stoves in public buildings and shops, (some have been homebuilt) so have been there when trying to save $... Could you turn stove 90* to right and push closer to basement wall thus getting rid of that head knocker long horizontal section? Add pedestal fan to circulate heat around area and punch hole near bottom of basement wall by stove for piping of outside combustion air...add blocks under legs to raise stove and save back when bending over to fuel/ clean ash....hope for warm winter/ low fuel prices . ( kinda off topic ...but went to a friends' home a bunch of years ago when the first high efficiency furnaces came out, and the exhaust run to outside through basement wall was constructed of 2 foot sections of aluminum DRYER vent)

 

[rswyan]

Stoves often smoke until they establish a warm draft. New wood on top of hot coals will smoke until the flame catches and the draft picks up.
All depends on the chimney.

Can depend on the placement (height) of the firebox door and outlet as well.

On our LTD Limited furnace that I posted a couple pictures of earlier, the top of the firebox door is roughly the same height as the firebox outlet ... that's actually (IMHO) a bad design, as is. It will allow smoke to come into the house - if there is a substantial quantity of unburned fuel in the firebox.

At the other house, we had a Brunco wood burning furnace - it had a hanging piece of steel plate (1/8" thick ?) just inside the firebox door that pivoted into the firebox and blocked smoke from coming out into house when the firebox door was opened.

If you put in a larger diameter piece of wood (that contacted the plate) it would swing in and up, out of the way.

 

[MossRoad]

I'd be hard put to get a mirror on a stick past the 90 degree bends in that stove pipe.

You remove the horizontal pipe from inside, put the mirror on a broomstick with duct tape and its only about 2'-3' to the vertical chimney, at most. Easy peasy.
You can get cheap mirrors at the dollar stores or Big Lots, etc... and everyone has duct tape and a broom stick.

Or, if you're more adventurous, duct tape your cell phone on the stick, turn on the flash, set the auto timer to 10 seconds, stick it in, take a picture, take it out and see what you get.