I had never lit my stove and forgotten about it - until today!

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Swedishchef

Swedishchef

Minister of Fire
Jan 17, 2010
3,275
Inuvik, Northwest Territories
Howdy

I have been burning wood for 4.5 years and never really forgotten my stove..until this morning. I raked some tiny coals to the front of the stove, put in 6 pieces of maple, tossed in a fire starter (not enough coals to really get it going), open my bypass and go upstairs to see what my kids were up to. I had full intentions to come back down in 2 minutes. I normally set my the timer on my watch when I do this...but I had forgot to put it back on after my shower earlier.

I get upstairs and the phone rings. It was the wrong number. I started folding laundry....15 minutes later my smoke detector that is downstairs is going off, my 4 year old starts putting on his boots (taught him to get dressed if he hears a smoke detector going off) and I FLY (literally) down my stair case to see WTF is going on. As I was rounding the staircase at the top my heart sank realizing I forgot about the stove.

Probe temperature showed 1300F, the inner pipe of my double wall stove pipe is glowing red, I closed the bypass and shut the primary air down completely. Everything calmed down, I looked outside to see from flakes of soot (certainly isn't anything in there now) and adjusted the primary air,now everything is cruising.

Lessons learned?
1- Don't light a stove and leave it unattended until things are cruising (obviously..)
2- Don't leave your kids upstairs alone for 3-4 minutes (they had marker all over their faces)


Andrew
 
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Hopefully stove is not damaged. Everyone is safe and house is still standing so that's good. I have my alarm set at 700deg so hopefully it won't happen to me.
 
I am not concerned about the stove. Since it was the flames going out the bypass, the size of the fire was actually small..but intense! My stove is a tank. :)

Andrew
 
Set a timer. You never know when you will get distracted by kids, a phone call, the internet... A cell phone is what I use now, but a kitchen timer works fine too.
 
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begreen said:
Set a timer. You never know when you will get distracted by kids, a phone call, the internet... A cell phone is what I use now, but a kitchen timer works fine too.
Click to expand...
I normally set the timer on my watch but my watch was off..and when I went to set the one on the stove, the phone rang. Ideally the timer to be used sits in the room where the stove is located.

Andrew
 
Was it "permanent marker"?;lol
 
Smoke detector paid for itself today. How hot was the room? Assuming heat set the detector off? Or was the stovepipe enough hotter than it has been to be giving off fumes?

Just out of curiosity, how could you tell the inner pipe was glowing red? I can't see mine.....
 
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I always let my lights on to the basement if the stove isn't set up right or not adjusted and running as it should be. I hate the electric bill, so that gives me great incentative to get the stove humming along as it should

Based on the OP description of no damage to the stove, one could say he just gave his chimney a very good cleaning. Scary way to do it though!

Craig
 
rideau said:
Smoke detector paid for itself today. How hot was the room? Assuming heat set the detector off? Or was the stovepipe enough hotter than it has been to be giving off fumes?

Just out of curiosity, how could you tell the inner pipe was glowing red? I can't see mine.....
Click to expand...

The room wasn't hot at all. The only reason my pipe got so hot so fast is because my stove has a bypass in the back to help warm the flu faster and get the fire started. Normally it is open 2-4 minutes and that is it. My stove pipe has some slots in it at the end that allows me to see the inner pipe..it is made to let the heat trapped between the two pipes out and into the room.

Andrew
 
You get use to it after a while ;em
Thankfully the modern certified stove and flues are designed to take that sort of (occasional) abuse.
 
Andrew, I find that interesting. When you say there are lots in the end, where exactly do you mean? And, does the provision to let the heat out of the pipe have an impact on the reduced clearances that one is permitted with the double wall pipe?
 
I wish my kids were so well trained. When we bought our house two years ago the smoke detectors had a lot of false alarms but I told the kids they still needed to leave the house immediately. Sure enough I'm outside for a while and come back in with the detectors blaring and the kids playing happily in the noise. I guess somehow they will make it to adulthood.
 
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After literally wearing out the lock button on my iPhone from constantly setting timers (remember... TWO stoves), I picked up one of these on Amazon:

840008.jpg


It's a brilliant little thing, which you just flip to the side you want. I bought the one pictured above, with 1, 3, 5, and 7 minute timers. They make others with other increments.

Pros: Super easy to flip to the side you want and set a timer... so easy I have my 5 year old trained to do it for me.

Cons: Alarm stops beeping after 20 seconds, or so. If you're out of the room when it goes off, you might not realize it did. You also have to train your kids not to play with it, since it does look like fun to them.
 
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I am so impressed with your son! Glad it turned out okay. I'm still waiting to do that one.
 
rudysmallfry said:
I am so impressed with your son! Glad it turned out okay. I'm still waiting to do that one.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the kind words..my son doesn't listen to me 99% of the time but at least he seems to when it counts.

It's one of those moments where your heart is racing and the cold sweats start immediately. Not a feeling I wish to have happen again in life (unless that's how you feel when you win the lottery).
:)

Andrew
 
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