chimney fire

[thenorth]

i had a fire in my chimney..........
brand new pipe from the stove up, double insulated stove pipe to the chimney collar (basement ceiling ), 2300 c pipe from there up............
It was not a roaring noise, the elbow from the stove pipe to the collar turned blood red, and a few sparks were seem coming out the top.................

question experts: do i have to change all the pipe work again, or, should the chimney handle a stove being lit again.......?????????

my GF said all is to be changed, i tend to think that , as it was not a roaring, noisy, flames out the top fire, that it will still be safe.....

any thoughts guys

John

 

[Hugenpoet]

Get a qualified Sweep to take a look at it. He can tell you right away if the chimney is damaged. Really impossible for one of us to give you any useful advice-although I"m with you if it didn't really roar, then a good cleaning is probably all you need,

I would try to figure out what caused the fire if the chimney is new.

 

[joecool85]

i had a fire in my chimney..........
brand new pipe from the stove up, double insulated stove pipe to the chimney collar (basement ceiling ), 2300 c pipe from there up............
It was not a roaring noise, the elbow from the stove pipe to the collar turned blood red, and a few sparks were seem coming out the top.................

question experts: do i have to change all the pipe work again, or, should the chimney handle a stove being lit again.......?????????

my GF said all is to be changed, i tend to think that , as it was not a roaring, noisy, flames out the top fire, that it will still be safe.....

any thoughts guys

John

Have you found out why you had a chimney fire in the first place? Also, consider yourself lucky your house is still standing.

 

[thenorth]

hi guys:

with my limited woodburning experience, i think it was caused by burning too much pine with bark attached, with the double insulated stove pipe, it is showing a temp of 195f , 18'' from the top of the stove, on the outside.........using a stick on thermometer.... the logs were at 15% MC, according to my meter.

i had no flames from the top, only a few sparks, it was just the elbow from stove pipe to ceiling mount, that went red.......and no roaring noise at all......

john

 

[tatra805]

want to add my experience without saying this is a normal thing.

I used to burn a lot of construction waste wood after rebuilding my previous house. That included painted, varnished etc wood and most of it pine.

Actually now i think about it i never bought any wood that period so the big pieces were roof construction waste parts. pine-pine-pine

I had what you describe above about every 2 months but it included the roaring sound but no flames out of the chimney.

My chimney was stainless non insulated piping in the visible parts and stainles flexible pipe inside the original brick chimney. My stove a Dovre with afterburning, no CAT.

I tested not using anything painted but the same result.

Roaring sound, red ring appearing and moving up the pipe, no flames outside.

It left me with a very nice red-blue-brown chimney pipe.

Having this for about 3 years i can only respect the strenght of the stainless piping. The first time it scared me to death but after a couple of times we only checked if we could see flames or not.

Try to shake your pipes. We had pure fine ashes coming down and therefore considered this whole process as an automatic chimney cleaning:jawdrop:

 

[thenorth]

tatra:
i will till my GF that it was an automatic cleaning cycle........... *s*

i have never burned constuction stuff,, all our wood is taken from our own 160 acres,, standing dead, and blown over,, i have yet to cut down a good healthy tree, and as i said, its tested with the meter...............

what i think i have to try and do, is get a temp sensor that i can install into this double stove pipe, this is the first year i have used the double stove pipe...maybe i am getting bad readings now, using the old fashioned magnet mount temp gauge.....
even with the sparks etc, and the elbow red,, i could still touch the double wall stove pipe................

this is a whole knew learning curve for me....

john

 

[bigbadbob]

I was a Volunteer fireman for 10 years. Small town BC
Did a lot of chimmney fires.
I would inspect the inside of the pipes.
I saw a few stainless pipes that crumbled on the inside from being to hot from chimmney fires.
You could crumble the pieces with your fingers.
Quite amazed me as I thougth the double insulated stainless pipes were the way to go.
But the pipes may have changed over the years also, and become better.
Good luck.

 

[thenorth]

hi bigbadbob;;

perhaps we have a missunder-communications here;;;;
the double insulated stove pipe, is not stainless......standard black pipe, but with a 25 thou air clearance between the inner and outer walls......
from the ceiling fitting up to outside, it is 2" insulated, stainless steel, rated at 2300c degrees............
it was only the elbow, from the stove pipe to the ceiling mount that was red.

i dont think any future harm was done, but, Linda, now wants to change all the chimney again...............
grrrrrr....*s*

and as an after thought,,, the old one worked for years, but did not meet the fire codes, when Linda went to insure the place.... the old one only had 1'' insulated chimney, and standard single wall stove pipe.....

john

john

 

[bigbadbob]

I would say you are probably good to go then.
Sorry bout the confusion on my part.

 

[Zodiac45]

I agree with Bob,

But do yourself a favor and burn seasoned wood with a hot fire and you'll never have the problem. Generally speaking a smoldering burn is where the buildup occurs and greenish wood is the culprit. Pine that is a natually pitch filled wood will only exasserbate the condition if not well seasoned.

 

[Hugenpoet]

I agree with Bob,

But do yourself a favor and burn seasoned wood with a hot fire and you'll never have the problem. Generally speaking a smoldering burn is where the buildup occurs and greenish wood is the culprit. Pine that is a natually pitch filled wood will only exasserbate the condition if not well seasoned.

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