The temperature dropped to aroud 5 degrees here in ohio. In my area alone I heard of 3 chimney fires. Must have been some part time burners that fired up to stay warm.
chimney fire
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Rick
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I'm on the volunteer department in my town. Used to be that we'd have at least 10 chimney fires a year, but that number is way down recently. Probably a mix of better public awareness, the proliferation of gas fireplaces (some of the biggest builders in my town are big fans so hundreds of new houses over the past few years have been built with them), and some demographic influences. Now we keep busy with furnace malfunctions. We had 5 this past weekend alone, including one furnace fire. I guess all those houses built back in the late seventies are getting ready for some new furnaces.
philaphire
Member
greenergrass said:
What exactly are the circumstances that make part time burners at risk OTHER than they could just be negligent with the cleanliness of their chimney?
What exactly are the circumstances that make part time burners at risk OTHER than they could just be negligent with the cleanliness of their chimney?[/quote]
Fine work detective.
I was just trying to ease the situation.
Fine work detective.
I was just trying to ease the situation.
Perhaps occaisional burners sometimes burn cooler shorter fires? But mainly I'd guess it's negligence in forgetting when the chimney was last cleaned (if ever).
Which raises the musical question, does anybody here know of anybody that has had a chimney fire in a SS lined chimney?
BrotherBart,
I have a SS liner, but I have not had a fire. Of course, I was on the chimney Sunday morning cleaning the accumulation of creosote off of the chimney cap, and i did run a poly brush down the liner just to clean out the stuff that was in the pipe.
The last time I cleaned the cap was roughly 45 days ago. I know it's time to clean when the smoke starts rolling out when I open the side door to reload. Same as last time, the holes in the cap had become bunged up with a dry creosote, which was easily cleaned out. The cap has a 1.5" wide solid ring surrounding it that probably serves to keep rain from driving directly in. I dremeled off the rivets holding this on to see if it made a difference in the buildup time. I can put it back on if I need to.
I'm lucky that the chimney is on the end of the house, and that my buddy has a 34 foot fiberglas ladder I can borrow. Once I'm up to the top I strap the thing to the chimney, and have at it.
JotulOslo
I have a SS liner, but I have not had a fire. Of course, I was on the chimney Sunday morning cleaning the accumulation of creosote off of the chimney cap, and i did run a poly brush down the liner just to clean out the stuff that was in the pipe.
The last time I cleaned the cap was roughly 45 days ago. I know it's time to clean when the smoke starts rolling out when I open the side door to reload. Same as last time, the holes in the cap had become bunged up with a dry creosote, which was easily cleaned out. The cap has a 1.5" wide solid ring surrounding it that probably serves to keep rain from driving directly in. I dremeled off the rivets holding this on to see if it made a difference in the buildup time. I can put it back on if I need to.
I'm lucky that the chimney is on the end of the house, and that my buddy has a 34 foot fiberglas ladder I can borrow. Once I'm up to the top I strap the thing to the chimney, and have at it.
JotulOslo
Whew...OK...i think starting a post with "Chimney fire" is kind of like walking into the flight deck of an airplane and saying "Hi Jack".
Glad to know it was more of a question than a statement! Search my posts for my short narritive of my only chimney fire years ago. I think around here, the CO poisonings far outweigh chimney fires. Havent really read about a chimney fire in years, but lost some folks earlier this year to CO.
Corey
Glad to know it was more of a question than a statement! Search my posts for my short narritive of my only chimney fire years ago. I think around here, the CO poisonings far outweigh chimney fires. Havent really read about a chimney fire in years, but lost some folks earlier this year to CO.
Corey
Gooserider
Mod Emeritus
greenergrass said:
Fine work detective.
I was just trying to ease the situation.[/quote]
I would also be willng to bet that the part time burner will have far worse burning habbits, and a less ideal burning setup. My GF's brother seems typical. He has a tiny fireplace in his house. He buys carloads of wood, supposedly seasoned, but it "clunks" when you hit it. :-/ He then stacks it on the front porch where it gets rained and snowed on - no cover. The soggy wood probably saves him, as he then builds big fires in the fireplace and lets them rip... If it were a stove he'd probably be overfiring. In addition his two kids have a tendency to play with the fire, including throwing various bits of plastic and other crap into it to see how they will burn.... No idea when the last time he had the flue cleaned.... He doesn't get significant heat out of his fireplace either.
Compare that to the ideal Hearth.com burner, with a modern, or at least reasonably safe insert or stove, running into a reasonably clean flue, with considerable attention paid to burning decent, dry wood, and not overfiring, but still running a hot fire on a regular basis....
Seems pretty clear to me about which is the better risk.
Gooserider
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