Yes . . . I've done it . . . I plead mea culpa . . . I messed up . . . and I'm here to confess my crime to all of hearth.com . . . mainly to let folks learn from my mistake.
Everything was going well yesterday . . . well actually it wasn't . . . my attempt to put plastic shrink wrap on a window looked as though a four year old drunk on Nyquil had attempted the project, I think I was higher than a 20-year old college student at Phish concert from inhaling too many mineral spirit vapors from attempting to remove vinyl floor glue from on top of my no-glue vinyl tiles instead of underneath the tiles (word of advice . . . I am not pleased with the Armstrong tiles from Lowes) and I never managed to even start another half dozen or so projects on my to do list . . . but those are stories for another time.
In any case, I had a fire going most of the day and things were going nicely. Shortly before 10 p.m. I put the last load on the fire, got things humming along nicely and then dampered down . . . and things were all hunky dorey until the split rolled down to the glass and came to rest.
Now this is where I should have and could have left things well enough alone . . . and just let everything run its course . . . but when the split rolled to the glass (usually I keep the splits away from the glass to keep it from gunking up) I figured at this point the damage was done and I might as well load up the firebox to the gills . . . with the two-year seasoned, small splits I had in the woodbox . . . even though the fire was now in the Bowels of Hell phase of burning . . .
For a brief second I swear I could have heard Brother Bart's voice chiding me to not throw on more wood when the fire was raging . . . but the appeal of waking up the next morning to lots and lots of coals was just too much . . . and so I added the wood . . . and everything was fine . . . for a few minutes.
And then the temps started to rise . . . of course I immediately shut the air control all the way to retain the heat in the stove . . . but by this point the fire was already going and there was no stopping or slowing things down . . . both the stove temp and flue temp continued to increase. Now I'm no pansy, but the rising temps soon approached the "oh crap" stage and I stupidly forgot that I had the means and tools at my disposal to shut things down quickly . . . by simply blocking the incoming air . . . but in my haste I forgot that very simple and plain fact.
Instead I first tried the Pook technique of tossing in a damp newspaper . . . I can say that this had a slight effect as it briefly lowered the temp on the flue and stove . . . but within minutes the temps were back and close to the "danger zone" -- in other words close to 1000 degrees F on the probe thermometer and in the mid to high 500s on the stove top (600s-725 on the flue collar).
I tried a second newspaper insert . . . I think it was an insert selling Ford pick ups . . . no exploding Ford Explorers though. This had the same temporary effect. The temps dropped for a bit and then went right back up. Finally, I hit upon the idea of cooling things down with the fan pointed right at the stove.
I don't know if the fan actually worked to help disperse the heat or if it simply cooled the thermometers, but within a few minutes the temps dipped back down to the high, but acceptable limits for me . . . not enough for me to head to bed, but enough that my heartbeat and adrenaline levels returned to near normal.
I haven't given my stove a thorough look over yet, but I suspect I'm OK. The flue temp never reached over 1,000 degrees, although it was high for a long time . . . I think (and hope) the effect of the fan kept the temp down enough to stay under 1,000 degrees F. Surprisingly the stove itself did pretty well . . . it was at the higher limits, but it didn't hit any crazy temps -- except for the flue collar. I won't lie and say the snaps and pops didn't alarm me a bit . . . and I smelled an oily, diesel like smell which at first I couldn't place (it wasn't a paint curing smell) until I realized this morning that it may have been the oil in the soapstone slab on top heating up to a higher temp than normal. However, I hope and think I'm OK.
Lessons learned . . . for me . . . and others.
1) Learn where the air intakes are . . . and be ready to block these off if the stove starts to truly run-away from you.
2) More importantly . . . heed the words of Reverend Brother Bart and only load in the cycle when it is appropriate -- at the coaling stage.
I know better . . . I've never done such a thing and even when I was opening that door to put in some more wood I knew this was a "rule" I should not break . . . and yet I did it anyways. I guess in retropspect I'm just lucky that the only damage was some lost sleep and not a damaged stove or stove pipe.
Live and learn.
Everything was going well yesterday . . . well actually it wasn't . . . my attempt to put plastic shrink wrap on a window looked as though a four year old drunk on Nyquil had attempted the project, I think I was higher than a 20-year old college student at Phish concert from inhaling too many mineral spirit vapors from attempting to remove vinyl floor glue from on top of my no-glue vinyl tiles instead of underneath the tiles (word of advice . . . I am not pleased with the Armstrong tiles from Lowes) and I never managed to even start another half dozen or so projects on my to do list . . . but those are stories for another time.
In any case, I had a fire going most of the day and things were going nicely. Shortly before 10 p.m. I put the last load on the fire, got things humming along nicely and then dampered down . . . and things were all hunky dorey until the split rolled down to the glass and came to rest.
Now this is where I should have and could have left things well enough alone . . . and just let everything run its course . . . but when the split rolled to the glass (usually I keep the splits away from the glass to keep it from gunking up) I figured at this point the damage was done and I might as well load up the firebox to the gills . . . with the two-year seasoned, small splits I had in the woodbox . . . even though the fire was now in the Bowels of Hell phase of burning . . .
For a brief second I swear I could have heard Brother Bart's voice chiding me to not throw on more wood when the fire was raging . . . but the appeal of waking up the next morning to lots and lots of coals was just too much . . . and so I added the wood . . . and everything was fine . . . for a few minutes.
And then the temps started to rise . . . of course I immediately shut the air control all the way to retain the heat in the stove . . . but by this point the fire was already going and there was no stopping or slowing things down . . . both the stove temp and flue temp continued to increase. Now I'm no pansy, but the rising temps soon approached the "oh crap" stage and I stupidly forgot that I had the means and tools at my disposal to shut things down quickly . . . by simply blocking the incoming air . . . but in my haste I forgot that very simple and plain fact.
Instead I first tried the Pook technique of tossing in a damp newspaper . . . I can say that this had a slight effect as it briefly lowered the temp on the flue and stove . . . but within minutes the temps were back and close to the "danger zone" -- in other words close to 1000 degrees F on the probe thermometer and in the mid to high 500s on the stove top (600s-725 on the flue collar).
I tried a second newspaper insert . . . I think it was an insert selling Ford pick ups . . . no exploding Ford Explorers though. This had the same temporary effect. The temps dropped for a bit and then went right back up. Finally, I hit upon the idea of cooling things down with the fan pointed right at the stove.
I don't know if the fan actually worked to help disperse the heat or if it simply cooled the thermometers, but within a few minutes the temps dipped back down to the high, but acceptable limits for me . . . not enough for me to head to bed, but enough that my heartbeat and adrenaline levels returned to near normal.
I haven't given my stove a thorough look over yet, but I suspect I'm OK. The flue temp never reached over 1,000 degrees, although it was high for a long time . . . I think (and hope) the effect of the fan kept the temp down enough to stay under 1,000 degrees F. Surprisingly the stove itself did pretty well . . . it was at the higher limits, but it didn't hit any crazy temps -- except for the flue collar. I won't lie and say the snaps and pops didn't alarm me a bit . . . and I smelled an oily, diesel like smell which at first I couldn't place (it wasn't a paint curing smell) until I realized this morning that it may have been the oil in the soapstone slab on top heating up to a higher temp than normal. However, I hope and think I'm OK.
Lessons learned . . . for me . . . and others.
1) Learn where the air intakes are . . . and be ready to block these off if the stove starts to truly run-away from you.
2) More importantly . . . heed the words of Reverend Brother Bart and only load in the cycle when it is appropriate -- at the coaling stage.
I know better . . . I've never done such a thing and even when I was opening that door to put in some more wood I knew this was a "rule" I should not break . . . and yet I did it anyways. I guess in retropspect I'm just lucky that the only damage was some lost sleep and not a damaged stove or stove pipe.
Live and learn.
