Starting a Stove Fire

[PILOON]

On stove fires.

My neighbor had a serious chimney fire that rendered his house a total loss mainly due to smoke damage.
His comment was the wood was all nice and dry! but it contained all sorts of resins.
Long and short is sweep your chimney annually and or learn as to how to burn off the creosotes that clog your flue.

In my case I learned how to create high heat to rid the creosote as it accumulated. Guess it might be called controlled burn off.
Old timers taught me well! (listen to your elders!)

 

[Diggin It]

Mine is a weird home brew set up. I configured the stack in a curly que arrangement to retain as much heat as possible and distribute it to the room. More surface area, more radiation, less waste. The bottom 3-4 feet get real hot (sometimes 300 degrees or more) while the top foot or so stays relatively cool (150 or less) according the the IR Temp Gun. I can open the pipe inside the house to clean it out and inspect. When I did that last week, there was almost no ash, maybe a cup or three. No other buildup of any kind since it gets so hot. The way it works out, the pipe itself acts as a firebreak and it's virtually impossible for flame to get far enough up the pipe to get to that top foot or so where I sometimes find black cake type buildup.

Hard to explain really and too ugly for pictures, but it does keep the house warm with very little risk..

 

[Jstpssng]

Years ago I was renting an old farmhouse which had a metalbestos chimney from the first floor through the attic to the roof. My fire hadn't been burning well for a few days so one night I opened the stove up and let it go. A while later a game warden knocked on my door... "Do you know that you have a chimney fire? I will call the fire department if you want." I asked him to hold on a minute; grabbed a fire extinguisher and shot it into the firebox. "POOF", and the fire was out. But the house was toasty warm, and I never had a problem getting a fire going after that. Since then I clean my chimney at least twice per winter.

 

[Industrial Toys]

So what makes one chimney fire good and another bad?

 

[Jstpssng]

So what makes one chimney fire good and another bad?

They all are bad, some are worse than others because with those you lose your house.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I don't understand. I thought guys were just saying it can clean out your chimney. I have a stone chimney and the fireplace has a 1/4" SS 6 x 12 or something flue. What's gonna happen there?

And my stove has a small, maybe 5" flexible SS liner that is all I could get inside the original clay tile.

And since I changed my roof from Cedar to Steel, I don't worry about that either.

 

[Jstpssng]

I don't understand. I thought guys were just saying it can clean out your chimney. I have a stone chimney and the fireplace has a 1/4" SS 6 x 12 or something flue. What's gonna happen there?

And my stove has a small, maybe 5" flexible SS liner that is all I could get inside the original clay tile.

And since I changed my roof from Cedar to Steel, I don't worry about that either.

You probably are OK with the stainless liner but why take a chance? A chimney fire can get pretty hot, and even with the liner it can compromise the chimney. My brother had a house with a concrete block chimney and clay liner, but when they tore the chimney down they found that the previous owner had a chimney fire which did some structural damage in the walls.

 

[pmsmechanic]

The problem with a chimney fire is that creosote burns a lot hotter than the temperature of normal smoke. If you have a large build up of creosote in your chimney and it starts on fire there is a good chance that the chimney won't be able to insulate the surrounding wood from the high temperatures. Wood will spontaneously combust at high temperatures. When that happens you have a fire in your house. Not a good thing.

If you regularly burn a hotter fire in your stove the elevated temperatures in the chimney will remove the built up creosote in a safe manner. If the creosote is never allowed to build up you will not have a chimney fire. That's why you check your wood stove chimney regularly for creosote. When I was burning wood I checked once a year. There was never more than a light layer of creosote.

 

[Doofy]

I have witnessed a creosote fire in a metalbestos chimney. The burning creosote was so hot it sounded like a blow torch and caused the pipe to fail and caught the chimney chase on fire.

I have seen single wall stove pipe cherry red at the top that also caught the roof on fire. Chimney fires can be deadly.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I have to watch my shop chimney. It was second hand metalbestos and I still have a cedar roof on that building.