RE: The importance of paying heed to those clearances and combustibles
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corey21
Minister of Fire
Tramontana
Burning Hunk
Cross Cut Saw
Feeling the Heat
Seriously, why are you drying out a filthy pair of socks?!?...and suggest that they wash those socks?!
Obadiah
“Extinguishing Mediocrity”
20 yrs ago we lost two nieces to a house fire, due to negligence on the baby sitters part. She sat something on the stove that caught fire. The Detroit firefighters were amazing the way they supported our family through this time. It was this experience that lead me to join our local volunteer fire dept and do more to serve my community.. It was also the reason I have tried to provide info on how to reduce clearances using Thermodynamics to move the heat away from the wall cavity.
There are lots of pictures on brochure of stoves that have installed in a manner that counterdicts the specs on the stove, there are also stoves that require so much clearance they would stick out in the room too far. It is these experiences that has caused me the greatest concerns as some folks do not understand the dynamics of spontaneous combustion.
What I see more than anything is masonry installed with no air space, over a wood framed wall. This is far worse than just leaving the drywall exposed as the masonry will absorb the heat and hold it against the wall far longer than if it was exposed and could cool down faster. This heat is then trapped and transfers into the wall gravity where it will dry out the internals of the wall. If there is wood in the wall, once the moisture content in the wood drys to zero and the temperatures rise above high enough, the wall can achieve combustion from the inside, without your knowledge that there is even a problem. Worse yet is an old home with plaster over wood lath walls which are already old and dried out. They will burn faster and allow the occupants less time to know there is a problem.
It only takes 3 things make fire, heat, fuel and oxygen. Deny any one of those and you will not have combustion. In most cases there is not enough air in a wall cavity to complete combustion, but drill a few extra holes ruining power or other wires, and you have what it takes to have a fire.
We have made some You Tubes on different ways to reduce clearances to combustibles, we show you how to prep the wall to achieve a 67% reduction according to approved NFPA formulas, using materials that can be found locally in most places. We even began making custom heat shields for some of the cookstove's we offer, to make them easier to install.
http://www.youtube.com/user/WoodyChain/videos?query=reducing+clearances+to+combustibles
A proper way to build a heat shield is one that has air space and will convect fresh cool air from the floor area and carry the heat up and out the top. The key is the air space between the combustible wall and whatever type heat shield your using. You can even use a combination of ways to reduce clearances more than 67%. Here is a look at what I have done, http://www.youtube.com/user/WoodyChain/videos?query=heat+shields
I hope this helps anyone trying to reduce their clearances. As always, not sure, just call me, I'll try to help as much as I can.
There are lots of pictures on brochure of stoves that have installed in a manner that counterdicts the specs on the stove, there are also stoves that require so much clearance they would stick out in the room too far. It is these experiences that has caused me the greatest concerns as some folks do not understand the dynamics of spontaneous combustion.
What I see more than anything is masonry installed with no air space, over a wood framed wall. This is far worse than just leaving the drywall exposed as the masonry will absorb the heat and hold it against the wall far longer than if it was exposed and could cool down faster. This heat is then trapped and transfers into the wall gravity where it will dry out the internals of the wall. If there is wood in the wall, once the moisture content in the wood drys to zero and the temperatures rise above high enough, the wall can achieve combustion from the inside, without your knowledge that there is even a problem. Worse yet is an old home with plaster over wood lath walls which are already old and dried out. They will burn faster and allow the occupants less time to know there is a problem.
It only takes 3 things make fire, heat, fuel and oxygen. Deny any one of those and you will not have combustion. In most cases there is not enough air in a wall cavity to complete combustion, but drill a few extra holes ruining power or other wires, and you have what it takes to have a fire.
We have made some You Tubes on different ways to reduce clearances to combustibles, we show you how to prep the wall to achieve a 67% reduction according to approved NFPA formulas, using materials that can be found locally in most places. We even began making custom heat shields for some of the cookstove's we offer, to make them easier to install.
http://www.youtube.com/user/WoodyChain/videos?query=reducing+clearances+to+combustibles
A proper way to build a heat shield is one that has air space and will convect fresh cool air from the floor area and carry the heat up and out the top. The key is the air space between the combustible wall and whatever type heat shield your using. You can even use a combination of ways to reduce clearances more than 67%. Here is a look at what I have done, http://www.youtube.com/user/WoodyChain/videos?query=heat+shields
I hope this helps anyone trying to reduce their clearances. As always, not sure, just call me, I'll try to help as much as I can.
tfdchief
Minister of Fire
bag of hammers
Minister of Fire
Woody that's great info. FWIW I think one of the clips - "part 7" - is not at the link posted (or the clips are just numbered incorrectly)?
Question - would you build this out this way for a stove install where all the manufacturer's clearances were already being accommodated? in other words, if you didn't need to reduce the specified clearances, but wanted some "overkill" anyway?
Question - would you build this out this way for a stove install where all the manufacturer's clearances were already being accommodated? in other words, if you didn't need to reduce the specified clearances, but wanted some "overkill" anyway?
Obadiah
“Extinguishing Mediocrity”
Opps.....sorry about that, I probably mis-named the videos. I'm a little technically challenged when it comes to making these videos sometimes. I recently had a mother board fail on my laptop that I used to edit and upload these videos with, crash and burn....... I managed to recover the hard drive and files that were on it, but all the titles and editing is in the Flip camera software, which will only load on my C drive. I have this new hot rod lap top with a Solid State Drive which is not that big but has a huge regular hard drive that has been set up into 3 partitions. There is not enough room on the SSD which is my C drive, for all the videos, (over 100 gigs), so I have been trying to go through all the files again, give them names, stick them in the proper folders on my F drive using Windoz Live Movie Maker, which at least will edit the videos from the drive where I have the space for the data . Next I need to figure out what has been uploaded and what has not, so I can figure out what I have to do to get back to where I left off. Maybe I will find lucky #7 there..... didn't mean to get off on a bunny trail there on you.
You Tube is a great tool to share knowledge with others I will review them and get them named properly. I am on Hughes Net Satellite until I get my T-1 installed,(any-day now) so we have limited bandwidth during normal business hours......or we get FAP'd.....which means they shut down your internet service. After peak time, midnight......you can upload all you want. So I am usually up to wee hours with one eye open trying to get the video to upload, just like I am now....so things get a little blurry.
Yes as you can see "Overkill" is my middle name too, no offence Scotty......so yes by all means, you can't have something "too safe" in my opinion.
The thing about the way the air space works in the wall heat shield is it creates convection heat, cool air is drawn into the base of the wall, as the radiant energy heats up the outer layer of masonry, the air in the space absorbs some of that heat, which rises out the top of the heat shield and is distributed into the home through the natural convection patterns in the home, pulling more air in behind it. Normally this heat is trapped in the masonry or wall near the stove, especially with a radiant type stove, although if you are following the listed clearances, there shouldn't be much heat transfer, but sometimes things just don't seem to go as planned, so any extra fudge factor you can throw into the mix is only gonna sweeten the pipe in the end, especially when you sleep soundly, knowing you went above and beyond. Which is my motto, "extinguishing mediocrity". Sleep well!
You Tube is a great tool to share knowledge with others I will review them and get them named properly. I am on Hughes Net Satellite until I get my T-1 installed,(any-day now) so we have limited bandwidth during normal business hours......or we get FAP'd.....which means they shut down your internet service. After peak time, midnight......you can upload all you want. So I am usually up to wee hours with one eye open trying to get the video to upload, just like I am now....so things get a little blurry.
Yes as you can see "Overkill" is my middle name too, no offence Scotty......so yes by all means, you can't have something "too safe" in my opinion.
The thing about the way the air space works in the wall heat shield is it creates convection heat, cool air is drawn into the base of the wall, as the radiant energy heats up the outer layer of masonry, the air in the space absorbs some of that heat, which rises out the top of the heat shield and is distributed into the home through the natural convection patterns in the home, pulling more air in behind it. Normally this heat is trapped in the masonry or wall near the stove, especially with a radiant type stove, although if you are following the listed clearances, there shouldn't be much heat transfer, but sometimes things just don't seem to go as planned, so any extra fudge factor you can throw into the mix is only gonna sweeten the pipe in the end, especially when you sleep soundly, knowing you went above and beyond. Which is my motto, "extinguishing mediocrity". Sleep well!
bag of hammers
Minister of Fire
No apologies necessary. The time and effort you put into the clips is much appreciated by many I'm sure....
Cross Cut Saw
Feeling the Heat
While very important, this thread needs a little lightning up:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/house
Enjoy....
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/house
Enjoy....
Ashful
Minister of Fire
tfdchief
Minister of Fire
CCS, although that is absolutely in keeping with the title of this thread, that still has to be the dumbest story I have ever read
Just kidding, thanks for the laugh.- Status
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