OWB Smoking Up Your Space?

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Fred61

Minister of Fire
Nov 26, 2008
2,445
Southeastern Vt.
Try this!! I was wandering around a town north of here in New Hampshire over the weekend and couldn't help snapping a couple photos of these units. Don't know if it is a town ordinance or just one guy's "clever" idea that caught on. There could have been more. One thing that stood out was that there was no wood in the woodsheds for next year. No rush! Plenty of time to cut trees and stack the wood.

Resized OWB2.jpg

Resized OWB2-1.jpg

The lower one appears to be about 25 feet and the other about 20 feet.
 
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No rush! Plenty of time to cut trees and stack the wood.

The pole are a pretty slick idea. As to plenty of time, lots of old tires available year around. ;lol
 
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pretty good idea. At least they got the stack up there pretty high. but for total cost of furnace, stack, contraption to hold the stack.you could put a nice gasser in a shed be ahead of the game.
 
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One town near us just put in an ordinance that the stacks had to be 20' off the ground. Not a bad idea except it will be a maintenance nightmare. I know what most of the short stacks look like i cant imagine how bad a 20' stack will get really quickly.
 
Belt & Spurs to clean the chimney?

Old style cleaning, stuff the bottom 3ft with newspaper, last few pieces have a good soaking of lighter fluid. Have the statement ready when the neighbors call the local fire department.
 
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Old style cleaning, stuff the bottom 3ft with newspaper, last few pieces have a good soaking of lighter fluid. Have the statement ready when the neighbors call the local fire department.

Just save it for the 4th of July. People get away with all kinds of stupid fireworks stuff on the nations birthday...
 
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Dilution is not the solution to pollution. Getting the smoke 20' higher doesn't really help much.


But it does help a little in the short term, especially if everyone is on a 1/4 acre lot and the jackass neighbor buys a OWB with a 4ft stack. Decades ago people burnt wood in a wood stove or boiler inside the house, which obviously had a chimney. Wood burning was more accepted back then, but the boiler wasn't spewing smoke 8ft off the ground.
 
Those tall stacks on an OWB look like the reincarnation of Krakatoa when they burn out!!!....... and they all do at some point or another.
 
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I expect they were smoking themselves or the neighbors out (if there are any). NH requires that phase 1 OWBs within 300 feet of a neighbors structure to be 2 feet higher than the other structure. This makes for a tall stack and the stacks require some other means of support. Even if their aren't any neighbors, the owners were probably smoking themselves out. I have attached a link below that has the regs.

My neighbor had to do a similar external support although I like the wooden pole better. My neighbors set up is still not compliant but its impact is far less than with the original short stack.

http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/ard/documents/ard-40.pdf
 
I expect they were smoking themselves or the neighbors out (if there are any). NH requires that phase 1 OWBs within 300 feet of a neighbors structure to be 2 feet higher than the other structure. This makes for a tall stack and the stacks require some other means of support. Even if their aren't any neighbors, the owners were probably smoking themselves out. I have attached a link below that has the regs.

My neighbor had to do a similar external support although I like the wooden pole better. My neighbors set up is still not compliant but its impact is far less than with the original short stack.

http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/ard/documents/ard-40.pdf
These units were in the village with fairly dense housing. The tall one appeared to be at an apartment house.
 
Looking a little closer at that chimney.....I wonder if they checked with CB about how many feet of pipe the collar on the boiler will support? Seems to me there was a maximum number of feet before the chimney became over weight....

I recall reading an article somewhere about a chimney that collapsed after only a few years worth of burnouts. It was double wall stainless but the constant burnouts and acid from the creosote did it in. If I recall correctly it wound up burning down part or all of the building it provided heat for.
The picture that I saw showed a stack about 30' in height that was guyed in 3 directions but when enough metal eroded away, it just fell in a heap.
 
I also haven't decided which is plumb. The utility pole or the pipe. Yea, there's no support for down pressure.
 
I wonder if they checked with CB about how many feet of pipe the collar on the boiler will support?

Apparently on my neighbors the max was 10' after that it needed to be externally supported

Even with clean dry well seasoned wood, in shoulder season there is still plenty of smoke when the damper slams shut on woodbox full of hot coals.
 
Apparently on my neighbors the max was 10' after that it needed to be externally supported

Even with clean dry well seasoned wood, in shoulder season there is still plenty of smoke when the damper slams shut on woodbox full of hot coals.


And that sports fans, happens regardless of whether the unit is a run of the mill OWB, a Phase I, Phase II or even a downdraft Gasser.
 
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