Please Learn from my stupidity

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McMatt

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Oct 9, 2007
19
WOW. Near disaster. This topic may seem obvious to seasoned pellett burners but if it spares anyone a disaster or worse it is worth posting.

I had a half day at work today for the holidays. Before leaving for work at six this morning I shut off the stove planning to clean it when I got home. Around 1 PM I arrived home and vacuumed out the stove and cleaned the glass. Good, boy, thinketh I, doing these routine maintenance chores before guests start arriving in earnest. A half hour later I noted with some alarm there was smoke coming out the tube of the shop vac. Being a curious sort I opened it up to see what was up. The filter was ablaze. Thanks to crises management classes at work I analyzed the situation.

1) Why am I concerned? Because my house is about to burn down.
2) Does this situation warrant immediate action or would sleeping on it produce a better result? No this is a major league yahoo frickin' disaster that warrants immediate action
3) What actions can I take to yeild a positive result? Haul the burning vacuum into the front yard and kick the thing out into the snow.

I'd have thought a six hour cool down period would have been enough to extinguish any embers. If you're never going to see me on Jeporady I still consider myself a reasonably intelligent person so you might think the same. NOT THE CASE. In retrospect the vacuum not only sucked up those remaining embers it provided the oxygen necessary to reignite them. Were it not for that telltale puff of smoke (which none of the smoke detectors caught onto) right now I'd likely be watching the local fire company hose down the ashes of my home and it's contents and possibly bagging and tagging my stupid ass.

I don't know how long it takes for those last remaining embers to cool off. Again it's longer than six hours. In the future my plan is to make sure all ash is cool to the touch, but still to put the shop vac out of doors on the driveway away from anything combustible while I figure this quandry out. I lost an 80 dollar vacuum. You could lose a whole lot more. Learn from my abject stupidity.

Happy holidays, merry Christmas, or whatever is appropriate to your life. I hate to post here and admit just how stupid I was, but again if it spares just one of you a similar disaster I'll be a fool for you.
 
As a 25 year wood burning veteran I lits my bosses dumpster on fire with ashes from a wood stove that were in a bucket for 7 days. I knew better, having learned that an ember can stay hot for up to 14 days if insulated in the cozyness of dead ashes. Talk about feeling stupid. Thank you for being the fool for all of us.
 
Mcmatt thanks for sharing a great lesson. It's tough to be human. This is the time of year when we are all rushing around. Towns around us have been having chimney fires, (we're do), electrical fires, oil furnace backfires and on and on. Again we must slow down, be aware of tunnel vision and know that brain farts happen to all of us. Enjoy your holidays. Be safe.
Ed
 
But most importantly - you didn't spill any of your beer did ya Bro? :lol: Just yankin' at ya.

I caught myself ABOUT to do the same thing a couple of days ago. I was on a little light clean up duty around the stove and darn near decided to vacuum off the ash shelf. Caught myself before I got stupider.

Glad you caught it and the only casualty was the vac.
 
Confession is good for the soul...and you may have spared someone a lot of grief. Props to you.
 
I have an aluminum trash can with a lid outside that I dump all my ashes in. AFter a few weeks I dump them in my favorite low spot in the yard. No CO2 and no fires that way. At least you get a new vaccuum!
 
Note to myself: Buy a cheap vacuum. :lol:
 
trust me , you arent the first , nor likely will you be the last to fall victim of that particular faux pas. i once heard of a store employee doing just that on demo models before locking up and burning down the store. guess he was in a hurry to get home.

in closing , KUDO"S to you for posting about your experience , if you save one person from having this happen to them and posibly having a major loss its well worth it. mighty big of you to generate this thread
 
A friend of mine used to work for the town driving a garbage truck. The other day we were talking about burning wood and he said at least once a year he or someone else would have to dump the trash truck in the middle of the road because people would dump their ashes in the trash still hot and it would catch the truck on fire.
 
I did it last spring. Was cleaning out the old fisher real well to replace the firebrick for sale. Hadn't had a fire in nearly 2 days. Was just getting last last corner cleaned when I remember thinking "That is one odd smell" About that time I turned around to see a 4-6 foot flame shooting out the back of my shop vac across my family room!!! Luckily, the plug was a straight shot or something would have gotten broke as the next move was w/ that vac and out the door.

Shop vac had a funky smell and slight squeal for a while, but seems to still be OK!

Lesson learned :shut: Disaster averted.

pen
 
I have a small ash can and never put it put it on the curb with a fresh dumping of ash. It sits on a concrete pad away from the house.

How ever! Once the disposal company puts a hand on it when it is at the curb. It then becomes their responsibility!
 
Mcmatt, I'm glad you kept your wits about you and handled the situation appropriately. Some folks wouldn't be that calm & collected. Thanks for bringing the tale here as a caution to others. I've never had an ash/coal related incident that lead to a fire...but I've inadvertently started a few others in inconvenient places with things like welding torches, cigarette butts and once even with a road flare. Don't ask. Just don't ever, ever, let burning sulfur drip down between your foot and a low-cut tennis shoe. :ahhh: :shut: :red: Rick
 
I had a Shop Vac incident with a chunk of coal from the stove five months after the stove burned down. To vac the stove out I used to put the Shop Vac out on the deck with a long hose. I had my head stuck in the stove just vacuuming away when I backed up and turned to see a room completely full of a grey fog. A coal dead for months had nuked the filter on the way into the vac and pulling on the hose had turned the exhaust aimed right in the door. My wife was not impressed. It took days of work to get that stuff somewhat cleaned up. Which she graciously left to me.

No fire threat but one hell of a mess. And the stove never gets vacuumed out again.
 
I was just reading the post on the Loveless ashvac's today and was amazed at how many people use shop vacs. Yes the ashvacs are expensive but are somewhat tolerable to the hidden ember. Ash is an excellent insulator so embers can stay hot for hours. $209 is cheap insurance or at least an easy buffer for your safety. I burned up at least a few shop vacs cleaning stoves when I first started years ago, so for me it was an easy investment. Glad to hear you still have a home for the holidays and your not at someone else's for the next year!
 
It's not important to me to "clean out" the inside of the stove entirely. It's a firebox. Thou shalt let thine fire box be dirty. However, I have been tempted to vac the hearth, on top of the blower fan housing (in front of the door) and on top of the top lip where a little fine ash dust settles. You can be sure I live with the dirt a little longer than I have to in order to be safe.

Had I had your situation, I'd have been in worse shape, for we have a central vac system. If any hot embers got sucked up, they'd be all the way across the house, in the basement, next to the oil tank (!!!!!). Not something I want to experience.
 
You know it is uncanny how many people have actually done this to their vacuum. I'd guess a pretty high percentage of burners. I still use my vac for getting ashes and wood chips off the floor around the hearth, but I don't go near the inside of the stove. Ashes generally stay in the stove until I clean out the ash pan and then I walk them out of the house in a metal coal bucket and dump them in the snow at the brush pile. Hey, if my brush catches on fire, it is less I need to burn in the spring, ;-P
 
The only time I use my Shop Vac to clean out the stove is when the stove has been "dead" for a couple of weeks . . . a) because after two weeks I figure there is a pretty good chance it will no longer be put in use and b) to reduce the danger of a fire.

I have occasionally used the vacuum to clean up the debris from the hearth, but this year I have been more inclined to simply sweep up the debris and toss it out on to the snow . . . the thinking that there may be an errant ember just lurking there on my hearth, ready for me to vacuum it up or toss it in the trash and have it burst into flame . . . yeah, I know, I know . . . I'm almost to the point of being paranoid when it comes to fire safety. ;)

For the record, my normal modus operandi if you would is to dump out my ash pan once to twice a week . . . the ashes are dumped in a 5 gallon covered metal pail . . . and they typically sit there for a week to several weeks before being dumped out back, on my garden or on my driveway (a lot of where they are dumped depends on how much snow we have in those places and how much ash I have already dumped.)

Incidentally, to the OP . . . thanks for sharing . . . we all learn from both the good and bad things that happen . . . fortunately this catch was made in time.
 
Mcmatt said:
You could lose a whole lot more. Learn from my abject stupidity.

Happy holidays, merry Christmas, or whatever is appropriate to your life. I hate to post here and admit just how stupid I was, but again if it spares just one of you a similar disaster I'll be a fool for you.
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McMatt, you make reference to being stupid more than once and even that you were a fool.

On the contrary, I would like to congratulate you on being a very wise man. Sure, you did something wrong and it turned out okay in the end, but in your wisdom, you shared with others what could have been a major disaster. That is a good warning and sometimes a good wake up call is what many need. So thank you for posting this and we wish you a Merry Christmas.
 
We were cleaning out our wood stove at our cabin that hadn't been used in a week. I had a 12 year old boy take out the ashes & dump them. He dumped them in dry leaves, however, they were fortunately in a big hole. An hour later we had a minor brush fire we were able to put out without the fire trucks.
 
I use an ash vac, but there are always too many hot embers. I vac anyway and put burns in the outer bag. I then dump the ashes in a galvanized can outside for a few days before placing them in the trash which I likewise leave set for at least a week before going to the curb.
 
I would also like to thank you for posting this - especially since I was just thinking about this the other day when I was cleaning around the insert. When I started to suck up ash in the front, I thought to myself, if there was a hot coal and I put the vaccum away, it would get ugly quick!

After seeing this thread, it has reminded me to tell my wife about this as she likes to clean up around the insert when I'm not around.

Merry Christmas!
 
I certainly don't think you're "stupid", either. All it takes is a momentary lapse of judgement to set up the conditions for a full blown tragedy. Wise indeed is he who willingly shares a "close call" for the benefit of all.
 
McMatt - I read your story to my wife and then some of the other tales in this thread. After Crabbypatty's story about the garbage truck she said "wow - the first guy's sounding smarter and smarter"! Thanks for sharing and have a Happy Christmas and New Year!
 
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