RE: FirefighterJake screws up . . . and breaks one of Brother Bart's Cardinal Rules . . . which is w

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the blaze king will creep up there with ease. in bout 10 min after reload it can be up pushig the 700 mark. the i say well time to back it down. dont see any issues. guess its a good indicator that the wood is dry. just gotta keep the eye on her.
 
My Super 27 will hit 700 on a fresh load no problem if I don't cut the air all the way off in time. When the stove is cruising at that temp with external stove pipe temp at 450 the heat output is just too much, I can't imagine having that kind of heat being produced in my living room (stove is in the basement) and would probably be worried too if it was.
 
Man Jake, I don't know what the heck is wrong with you.
I've NEVER done anything like that. ;-)
Now, go write 1000 times,..."I shall never insert wood into a blazing inferno".
 
southbalto said:
The manual for the oslo indicates an optimum surface temp of 400-600 degrees. Why were you sweating mid to high 500s?

i shut down my jotul last year in a pinch by stuffing the air intake with foil.....It's effective.
Click to expand...

I was a bit worried at the time since the temps on both were heading north very fast and showed no sign of slowing down . . . plus the flue collar was really hot.

I realized afterwards that I could have easily fixed this potential problem with a piece of aluminum foil . . . and had one of those "d'oh" moments.
 
op_man1 said:
500 stovetop doesn't sound that hot to me... Was it the flue temps that had you worried? Excuse my ignorance!
Click to expand...

Flue temp was close to 1000 degrees and not slowing up . . . and the stove top temp was also steadily increasing . . . along with the flue collar temp being pretty high. By biggest concern was not so much the actual temps, but rather that the temps were steadily increasing with no sign of slowing up.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Jake, thanks for posting this if only to show that even us with much experience can still make some dumb mistakes. However, it also shows that experience allows us to keep our cool to get the situation under hand.

I agree you probably did not harm to the stove but perhaps a bit to your ego. I would not have been concerned about the stove top temperatures but with the flue temperatures going up high that would concern me a lot. As for you adding wood when the stove was that hot, you definitely should have known better and I'm betting you learned much from that error. I don't know if removing that extra soapstone would have helped much but probably would have tried to remove it to let the heat dissipate more rapidly.

As for the wood falling into the glass, that is one reason I like the Woodstock design so that can't happen.


All in all, I'm very glad this worked out well in the end for you. Caulk it up to one more lessen learned. I will no doubt be our last.
Click to expand...

A dumb mistake . . . most assuredly.

Keeping cool . . . oh, I don't know about that . . . keeping cool would have been remembering to block the air in the back of the Oslo.

As mentioned the thing that most concerned me was not so much the actual temps -- although of the two I was more concerned with the flue temp since it was right on the edge of being in the "danger zone" -- but rather it was the fact that the temps were steadily climbing and showing no sign of leveling off or even slowing down.

And yes . . . I knew better and can assure you that loading the stove in this way will never happen again.

Finally, having andirons in a stove like the Woodstock to allow a person to stack wood higher in the front without having it touch the glass is most definitely a nice feature.
 
zapny said:
Jake did you load n/s or e/w?


zap


Glad things are good and nothing got away.
Click to expand...

Due to the set up I almost always load East-West unless I'm burning some chunks which are omni-directional.
 
BrotherBart said:
Green Energy said:
I know the temptation - time to turn in and I did not time the last load very well, so I want to top off the stove so that I have plenty of coals in the morning. Last winter, I also learned my lesson. Definitely scary when the stove temps take off and everything in the stove is flaming. So I learned the importance of planning the reload. Timing is everything...
Click to expand...

A guy that doesn't post here anymore said it best. "The art of wood burning is timing the coal bed for the overnight load.".

Keeping a few small pieces around for the times that the timing is off is priceless.

And thanks for posting Jake. Saves a few new burners in EPA stoves from getting the crap scared out of them. Watching secondary burn is kinda fun but it can turn into serious fear when it turns into an inferno in your living room.
Click to expand...

Believe it or not Bart I was thinking of you the whole time . . . thinking of how many times I have heard your advice about loading in cycles and at the proper time and not when the temps are already pretty high . . . and yet I did this stupid thing anyways . . . and even while doing it I was thinking to myself that this was stupid and there was a reason why I never have done this in the past.

And so while I felt a bit stupid posting this as an "experienced" burner . . . live and learn and heed the venerable Brother Bart's advice.
 
Instead of replying to every response about the temps being normal . . .

My main concern was not so much with the actual temps (although I was more concerned with the temp in the flue since it was close to being in the "red zone") as was my concern that both the flue and stove temps were steadily increasing without showing any signs of slowing down or leveling off . . . and even after I took action I was a bit concerned as to whether the fan blowing on the stove was actually cooling the stove and flue . . . or if it was simply cooling the thermometers.

I can safely say I don't have any real concerns about the stove or chimney -- the temps were still within the specs and I quite honestly believe that there may be a "fudge" factor built into their stated numbers. That said, I generally try to run my stove at around 450-550 degrees . . . seeing the temp in the 600 range and the stove collar in the 700 range made me a bit worried . . . and since my probe thermometer rarely gets above 800 degrees seeing it steadily marching right up to 1,000 degrees with no sign of slowing down gave me a a bit of a concern.
 
Jake - anybody that has burned for more than a season that tells you that they haven't had a pucker moment - just isn't telling the story.

Now you got yours

(mine is the flashback that tried to blow the stove into the basement :gulp: )
 
I can tell you that I run the flue up to 900 or 1000 at least briefly on most start-ups. Maybe I shouldn't.

We hit 1400* flue probe last year on a runaway situation. Stove was topping 800* when I stuffed the air intake. And you know, it scared the crap out of me and I learned from it, but everything held together.
 
My wife rolls her eyes at me for this, but . . .

My life has been spared many, many times in airplanes because I followed procedures that were ingrained in memory through drills, dry checklist run thrus, and careful simulation. I've had inflight fires, engine failures, bird strikes, failed instruments when flying in the clouds, and more, but have always been able to stay calm and fall back to procedures that have relatively assured outcomes. If a procedure fails to have the desired outcome, there's usually another layer of fall back procedures underneath the one that failed. Most often, it's only when all procedures have failed or when they aren't followed to begin with and pilots start "trying things" that lives are lost.

When something becomes THAT ingrained in you, it bleeds over into other parts of your life, so I've spent hours sitting in front of the wood furnace going through the 'what-ifs' and creating checklists for chimney fires, run away scenarios, broken door hinges, failed plenum integrity, power outages, etc. The checklists and required tools (Chimfex extinguisher, regular fire extinguisher, pre-cut heavy foil to cover the baro damper, pre-cut heavy foil to cover a broken loading or ash pan door, pipe caps for the modified secondary burn tubes, etc.) are all sitting in the furnace room, ready to go.

I've made my wife go through the drills and memorize the checklist "Memory Items" (those items that are so urgent you may not have time to get a checklist and review it) so that, when I'm not home or am traveling for business, I know that she can handle whatever might happen. The first time to read the directions and actually strike a Chimfex is NOT when a chimney fire is roaring above you and the first time to put a piece of foil over the loading door opening is NOT when the door has actually broken off and the stove is running away from you. Mechanical actions like those should be second nature, otherwise the action of figuring it out and the questioning uncertainty that go with it will lead to panic and failed outcomes when the real situation occurs.

Those checklists are designed to save the house and our belongings and I think most of those situations can be resolved safely with a calm set of calculated, practiced actions. But the real desired outcome is that my wife, my son, our unborn child, and I are all safe, therefore, the ultimate checklist has one item on it: "1. If you have lost control of the situation, get everyone out of the house immediately and call 911." I can handle losing my home. I can't handle losing the people I love and the true desired outcome of any situation has to be recognized on the front end.

As pilot-geeky as it sounds, I can't imagine having a wood stove or wood furnace in my house without also having thought through exactly what to do in the unlikely but "common" potential issues.

Believe it or not, I'm NOT a type-A controlling personality - unless it's something that's related to safety. Then my years of pilot training and working for aircraft manufacturers as a flight standards pilot kick in. :)
 
firefighterjake said:
zapny said:
Jake did you load n/s or e/w?


zap


Glad things are good and nothing got away.
Click to expand...

Due to the set up I almost always load East-West unless I'm burning some chunks which are omni-directional.
Click to expand...

Is that a "Unity" term for short pieces ? You sell omni-directional wood" to the flat landers for extra $$$'s?
 
FixedGearFlyer said:
My wife rolls her eyes at me for this, but . . .

My life has been spared many, many times in airplanes because I followed procedures that were ingrained in memory through drills, dry checklist run thrus, and careful simulation. I've had inflight fires, engine failures, bird strikes, failed instruments when flying in the clouds, and more, but have always been able to stay calm and fall back to procedures that have relatively assured outcomes. If a procedure fails to have the desired outcome, there's usually another layer of fall back procedures underneath the one that failed. Most often, it's only when all procedures have failed or when they aren't followed to begin with and pilots start "trying things" that lives are lost.

When something becomes THAT ingrained in you, it bleeds over into other parts of your life, so I've spent hours sitting in front of the wood furnace going through the 'what-ifs' and creating checklists for chimney fires, run away scenarios, broken door hinges, failed plenum integrity, power outages, etc. The checklists and required tools (Chimfex extinguisher, regular fire extinguisher, pre-cut heavy foil to cover the baro damper, pre-cut heavy foil to cover a broken loading or ash pan door, pipe caps for the modified secondary burn tubes, etc.) are all sitting in the furnace room, ready to go.

I've made my wife go through the drills and memorize the checklist "Memory Items" (those items that are so urgent you may not have time to get a checklist and review it) so that, when I'm not home or am traveling for business, I know that she can handle whatever might happen. The first time to read the directions and actually strike a Chimfex is NOT when a chimney fire is roaring above you and the first time to put a piece of foil over the loading door opening is NOT when the door has actually broken off and the stove is running away from you. Mechanical actions like those should be second nature, otherwise the action of figuring it out and the questioning uncertainty that go with it will lead to panic and failed outcomes when the real situation occurs.

Those checklists are designed to save the house and our belongings and I think most of those situations can be resolved safely with a calm set of calculated, practiced actions. But the real desired outcome is that my wife, my son, our unborn child, and I are all safe, therefore, the ultimate checklist has one item on it: "1. If you have lost control of the situation, get everyone out of the house immediately and call 911." I can handle losing my home. I can't handle losing the people I love and the true desired outcome of any situation has to be recognized on the front end.

As pilot-geeky as it sounds, I can't imagine having a wood stove or wood furnace in my house without also having thought through exactly what to do in the unlikely but "common" potential issues.

Believe it or not, I'm NOT a type-A controlling personality - unless it's something that's related to safety. Then my years of pilot training and working for aircraft manufacturers as a flight standards pilot kick in. :)
Click to expand...

Folks like you are what gives me confidence in flying . . .
 
flyingcow said:
firefighterjake said:
zapny said:
Jake did you load n/s or e/w?


zap


Glad things are good and nothing got away.
Click to expand...

Due to the set up I almost always load East-West unless I'm burning some chunks which are omni-directional.
Click to expand...

Is that a "Unity" term for short pieces ? You sell omni-directional wood" to the flat landers for extra $$$'s?
Click to expand...

Yup . . . short pieces that can be placed north, south, east, west, northwest, southeast or even southwest (no charge for baggage when I place the wood this way.)
 
My last stove would hit 700 easy. have not had new epa stove that hot yet.
 
FixedGearFlyer said:
My wife rolls her eyes at me for this, but . . .

My life has been spared many, many times in airplanes because I followed procedures that were ingrained in memory through drills, dry checklist run thrus, and careful simulation. I've had inflight fires, engine failures, bird strikes, failed instruments when flying in the clouds, and more, but have always been able to stay calm and fall back to procedures that have relatively assured outcomes. If a procedure fails to have the desired outcome, there's usually another layer of fall back procedures underneath the one that failed. Most often, it's only when all procedures have failed or when they aren't followed to begin with and pilots start "trying things" that lives are lost.

When something becomes THAT ingrained in you, it bleeds over into other parts of your life, so I've spent hours sitting in front of the wood furnace going through the 'what-ifs' and creating checklists for chimney fires, run away scenarios, broken door hinges, failed plenum integrity, power outages, etc. The checklists and required tools (Chimfex extinguisher, regular fire extinguisher, pre-cut heavy foil to cover the baro damper, pre-cut heavy foil to cover a broken loading or ash pan door, pipe caps for the modified secondary burn tubes, etc.) are all sitting in the furnace room, ready to go.

I've made my wife go through the drills and memorize the checklist "Memory Items" (those items that are so urgent you may not have time to get a checklist and review it) so that, when I'm not home or am traveling for business, I know that she can handle whatever might happen. The first time to read the directions and actually strike a Chimfex is NOT when a chimney fire is roaring above you and the first time to put a piece of foil over the loading door opening is NOT when the door has actually broken off and the stove is running away from you. Mechanical actions like those should be second nature, otherwise the action of figuring it out and the questioning uncertainty that go with it will lead to panic and failed outcomes when the real situation occurs.

Those checklists are designed to save the house and our belongings and I think most of those situations can be resolved safely with a calm set of calculated, practiced actions. But the real desired outcome is that my wife, my son, our unborn child, and I are all safe, therefore, the ultimate checklist has one item on it: "1. If you have lost control of the situation, get everyone out of the house immediately and call 911." I can handle losing my home. I can't handle losing the people I love and the true desired outcome of any situation has to be recognized on the front end.

As pilot-geeky as it sounds, I can't imagine having a wood stove or wood furnace in my house without also having thought through exactly what to do in the unlikely but "common" potential issues.

Believe it or not, I'm NOT a type-A controlling personality - unless it's something that's related to safety. Then my years of pilot training and working for aircraft manufacturers as a flight standards pilot kick in. :)
Click to expand...

Yet - you run a Vogelzang. :lol:

(I'm just bust'in your chops ;-))
 
I think I'd be more worried about cracking my stove because I changed the temp too rapidly by throwing wet newspaper in it. Cast iron is pretty tough stuff but will crack readily if thermal expansion/contraction doesn't occur uniformly and slowly.

I've been concerned that my Oslo was getting too hot once or twice so I experimented by going outside and covering the OAK intake; it slowed the fire nicely. That's one advantage of OAKs you rarely see mentioned. Putting your arm back under a stove that's overheating to block the air intake isn't fun. That's one when I'd much rather go out in the cold.. unless that coon is still waiting for me.
 
Nobody at the stove place mentioned I would need a tin foil ball. Sounds like they've missed a potential income stream. Kind of makes you wonder why these stoves don't have a kill switch air gate, which I would guess would probably be a pretty easy retro fit.
To get yours today, send a $39.95 check or money order to... :)
 
Where are you putting the tin foil, primary or secondary air?
 
oldspark said:
Where are you putting the tin foil, primary or secondary air?
Click to expand...

The secondary air inlet. Doesn't have to be a ball. The suction will hold a sheet of tin foil against the inlet. Of course use heavy foil. You don't even want to try to figure out how to get a sheet of light tin foil out of the inside of the secondary manifold if it gets sucked in there.
 
Clodhopper said:
Nobody at the stove place mentioned I would need a tin foil ball. Sounds like they've missed a potential income stream. Kind of makes you wonder why these stoves don't have a kill switch air gate, which I would guess would probably be a pretty easy retro fit.
To get yours today, send a $39.95 check or money order to... :)
Click to expand...

I'm not in sales, but I would have to imagine that advertising that you need "balls" to operate a wood stove would not be a selling point to most customers. :lol:
 
Jags said:
Yet - you run a Vogelzang. :lol:

(I'm just bust'in your chops ;-))
Click to expand...

Ha! It was here when we bought the house. I have my eye on a couple of other furnaces (the Caddy and the Kumma Vapor Fire 100), but the budget says, "Not yet!"
 
firefighterjake said:
Folks like you are what gives me confidence in flying . . .
Click to expand...

You know, I didn't think anything of having the wood furnace until I read something on Hearth.com about a guy with a stove that was running away who tried to solve the problem by carrying the burning logs outside with nothing but fireplace tongs! That sounds utterly insane and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's a good idea . . . unless you're in the middle of the situation and not thinking clearly.

I read that thread, pictured my wife trying to do the same thing while I was away, and my inner safety-weenie kicked in. She's fully capable and usually much more level-headed than me, but I immediately sat down to think about the "Furnace Emergency Checklists". She was very patient and forgiving when she realized what I was doing, but DEFINITELY gave me more than one eye-roll.
 
In the year and a half or so that I have been reading and posting here at Hearth.com I have never seen Brother Bart's rule about not adding splits to an inferno, or what ever it is. I often add splits to my Fireview at all times in the burn cycle, because I am leaving the house or going to bed. I don't go far away and keep the air setting low. After a few minutes, I engage the cat and lower the air to usual setting. No inferno, no run away. Maybe my wood is not as well seasoned as I think?
 
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