How I reign in a runaway fire.

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.
woodmiser

woodmiser

Feeling the Heat
Oct 20, 2011
390
Garnet Valley, PA
My Clydesdale likes to get hot. This morning I was burning some of my so-so seasoned oak. When it goes into secondary mode I have the thing shut totally down but the fire continues to grow and the heat continues to rise. Stove top always likes 600-700 in this part of the cycle. Sometimes hitting 800+. This morning ... same thing. I tried the open door method. It cooled about 30 degrees and then started going back up again with a loud roar. So when she hit about 680 stove top I shoved in a nice ugly freshly split piece of cold green oak. Fire tamed. She started dropping and in about ten minutes was down to 600 and slowly falling. Looks like I'm going to be keeping some fresh split green wood on hand and also I'll be using one small one in the startup load to help control the overnight so I don't have to worry. Looks like a great way to use uglies too.
 
You can also use some tinfoil and put it over the air inlet . . . will kill the fire pretty quickly as well.
 
Not so easy with this insert.
 
Woodmiser, if you continue to burn green wood, especially green oak, you are going to cause yourself some very serious problems. And no way would I add any wood to a fire that I wanted to cool!!!!!

600-700 would seem to be not too hot but I don't know the manufacturer's recommendation on that stove. One other thing that many have found to work if a stove gets too hot is to open the draft to give it more air. It does sound counter-intuitive but it works. Would it work on a 600 degree the same as a 700 or 800? I don't know because I have not tried but it seems that it would.....to a point. Of course if one leaves the draft fully open long enough you'd for sure get super hot. Remember we are talking for short times here.

Do yourself a big favor and get some good fuel so you have more control of the stove. You'll also find you burn less wood and get more heat. I've said it before and will again. If people had good dry wood then 99% of their burning problems would be gone. Have I mentioned it is important to have good fuel?!
 
woodmiser said:
Not so easy with this insert.
Click to expand...

Hehheh . . . didn't realize it was an insert . . . yeah . . . not very easy at all!!! :)
 
Grab your ash bucket and throw a couple of shovel fulls of ash on top of the roaring fire. Kills the oxygen getting to the wood.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Woodmiser, if you continue to burn green wood, especially green oak, you are going to cause yourself some very serious problems. And no way would I add any wood to a fire that I wanted to cool!!!!!

600-700 would seem to be not too hot but I don't know the manufacturer's recommendation on that stove. One other thing that many have found to work if a stove gets too hot is to open the draft to give it more air. It does sound counter-intuitive but it works. Would it work on a 600 degree the same as a 700 or 800? I don't know because I have not tried but it seems that it would.....to a point. Of course if one leaves the draft fully open long enough you'd for sure get super hot. Remember we are talking for short times here.

Do yourself a big favor and get some good fuel so you have more control of the stove. You'll also find you burn less wood and get more heat. I've said it before and will again. If people had good dry wood then 99% of their burning problems would be gone. Have I mentioned it is important to have good fuel?!
Click to expand...

This is not a fuel issue. His fuel is good, perhaps too good and dry. If putting in a green log slows his fire down, then fine. Tossing in an "occasional" green log shouldn't hurt anything as long as this is in a non-cat stove. Bad idea for a cat stove though.

We get lots of folks here with excellent fuel that have too hot stoves. I would guess about 50% of my responses at this time of year are on this subject. The majority of these issues have nothing to do with dry wood, they have to do with timing and how the stove is run. Most are putting too small wood on too hot a coal bed. It rapidly outgases and ignites massive secondary combustion. The solution is to burn down the coals further with the air wide open, before reloading. The other issue is that many people are waiting too long to turn down the air control. In the past 2 days we've had a couple reports of folks running their flues up to 1000F or above, trying to get the stove top up to 750F before turning down the air. That is not how the stove is meant to be run. Again, not a dry fuel issue.
 
Are your door and glass gaskets in good shape? Maybe unwanted air leak not that is not letting you close down enough?
 
Jags said:
Grab your ash bucket and throw a couple of shovel fulls of ash on top of the roaring fire. Kills the oxygen getting to the wood.
Click to expand...

+1. I always keep a small bucket of ash on the back porch just for this reason. Luckily, I've never needed it.
 
logger said:
Jags said:
Grab your ash bucket and throw a couple of shovel fulls of ash on top of the roaring fire. Kills the oxygen getting to the wood.
Click to expand...

+1. I always keep a small bucket of ash on the back porch just for this reason. Luckily, I've never needed it.
Click to expand...
never thought of that. totally makes sense...
 
I guess I still do not have the draft you guys do, my stove will not run away no matter how hard I try.
 
My lightbulb moment came a few weeks ago from a comment BeGreen posted. Basically it was (hopefully accurate from what I remember, apologies if not): when the wood is reduced to coals towards the end of the burn cycle, open the primary air to get more heat at the end of the cycle. I started doing this when I saw the stove top temps lowering, and I knew a re-load was coming up. It makes sense to get the fire box temp up, extend the burn cycle and it makes lighting the re-loads easier. If the stove top temps go up, that will determine how many splits are going in on the re-load.

I never thought of opening the primary towards the end. I'd say for me that there are still many things to be learned.
 
Danno77 said:
logger said:
Jags said:
Grab your ash bucket and throw a couple of shovel fulls of ash on top of the roaring fire. Kills the oxygen getting to the wood.
Click to expand...

+1. I always keep a small bucket of ash on the back porch just for this reason. Luckily, I've never needed it.
Click to expand...
never thought of that. totally makes sense...
Click to expand...

And, it sounds like a ton of fun... 3-4 times every day. According to the OP this is a regular occurrence.

Be Green has it nailed AFAIC. I doubt the OP has wood that is too dry to get an easily controlled burn. It's oak and he described it as so-so in MC. But even so-so wood can burn too hot if you get a good draft going once the flue gets up to temp and you gave it too much air. I have to be more careful this time of year because the draft is sluggish at startup and I sometimes give it way too much air and forget about it. I come back to peek at it and it is roaring, even after the thermostat has mostly shut the air down (BTW BG this is one time I love the VC thermostat). Happened to me just now, and with not a huge load in there either, less than 1/3 full. Stove was at 700º and single-wall flue was at 650º on the magnetic. Not exactly dangerous, but not exactly what I had in mind for a day in the upper 40s.
 
Battenkiller said:
Be Green has it nailed AFAIC.
Click to expand...

I am in complete agreement. My suggestion was for the person that finds themselves in an "Oh Chit" moment, not an every day occurrence.
 
Jags said:
Battenkiller said:
Be Green has it nailed AFAIC.
Click to expand...

I am in complete agreement. My suggestion was for the person that finds themselves in an "Oh Chit" moment, not an every day occurrence.
Click to expand...
my wife would kill me if i did that on a regular basis. You know how messy that would be?
 
Danno77 said:
my wife would kill me if i did that on a regular basis. You know how messy that would be?
Click to expand...

Well, I guess that is my point from the above post. If this is a regular basis kinda of thing, you gotz problems that need to be addressed (and BG and BK are spot on for that). But for that once every two years that you got distracted because you now need to scold the dog for pulling the turkey carcass onto the floor kind of thing, it is a pretty neutral way of shutting down a blaze.
 
oldspark said:
I guess I still do not have the draft you guys do, my stove will not run away no matter how hard I try.
Click to expand...
In my former home I had a problem with runaway fires. It was a combination of too much draft and the EPA mandated notched air control that did not allow the air to be turned down enough.

In my current home, I have a shorter flue and less draft as a result. They also made the EPA notch smaller and I tamed the unregulated doghouse air. I also put a positive shutoff on the OAK so I can pretty well starve the fire of air.

That said, I can still have a runaway if I want and do crank it up now and then to clean out the interior.

I heard that some folk keep a wet rolled up newspaper in a plastic bag nearby to toss in the stove to tame the beast.
 
LLigetfa said:
I heard that some folk keep a wet rolled up newspaper in a plastic bag nearby to toss in the stove to tame the beast.
Click to expand...

I kinda like the OP's method of using a wet oak log instead. I wish I had a small pile of the things for when things get a bit too vigorous, but all my wood was dried outside for the first time in 20 years. Not a wet round on the property.

Thanks, guys. :roll:
 
Timely post.

First off the OP has a Clydsdale which has instructions not to heat beyond a certain point due to the tiles/stones made for his insert…very different from a steel or cast iron stove.

I have Jotul insert and just this morning my top temp reached 950°…….. operator was distracted and didn't expect the load to take off so fast because it was the first load of the day….forgot to figure in the outside temp. which is low which influences my draft in a huge way. My Jotul loves the cold!

I knew not to panic because this insert is built like a tank AND from what I have learned here I knew what TO do…..for me it was simply turning down the air all of the way and turning on the blower. The temp. dropped down into the 800° range within 5 minutes. ( This inserts cruising temp. is 750° so I know 800° isn't that big of a deal…) If that hadn't worked I would have opened up windows and used fans to push cold air towards the blowers…..which cools down the outer box and helps lower the temp. pretty quickly.

If that hadn't worked I would have panicked.

:ahhh:

But now I know about the cold ash trick so I will store that in my memory for future reference when the operator errors again…. ;-)
 
perplexed said:
But now I know about the cold ash trick so I will store that in my memory for future reference when the operator errors again…. ;-)
Click to expand...

If I only help but one person... :lol:
 
I have two separate wood sources. I have a a chord and a half of 4 years super dry mixed hardwoods and about three chords of so-so seasoned oak. The oak will take off once it's been in the stove heated up but I start the fire with the dry stuff.

The Clydesdale calls for 600 max continuous. This is a full cast iron insert with soapstone lined walls. It's not all that fragile. My worst spike pegged the stovetop thermometer at 900 but I got the temp down slowly by opening the door. I'm more careful now but even with the so-so oak, a full load tends to get it into the 700 zone at peak and sometimes if I don't watch it it keeps slowly climbing. I am careful in bringing it up and reloading with a reduced coal bed. Yes I do open her up at the end of the cycle to take advantage of the coal pile. I get an extra hour or so of meaningful heat. I tried using my bigger splits of oak but it doesn't seem to make much difference. I talked to Hearthstone. The told me to do a leak check with incense smoke. I did that... no leak at the door at all. They are the ones that suggested mixing some less seasoned wood. When it went off last night I threw in the wet cold ugly and it worked like a champ. Personally I think the Clydesdale has a bit too much designed-in uncontrollable air.

I modified the air control by bending the stop tabs on the slider so it would shut a little more. Barely made a difference.

The stove shows no sign of any stress.. no cracked stones, no bent metal, no paint discoloration.

I have chords of unseasoned wood stacked so it's just a matter of using the right "recipe". I think they (Hearthstone) know it likes to get hot as they don't deny it and they suggested what to do "wood-wise" to help control it.

I don't think I'll be throwing ashes in the stove. Heck it's enough trouble taking them out LOL
 
Cords.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

bigealta
Reloading - How to do it Better?
Replies
22
Views
1K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
bigealta
bigealta
E
Advice on last night's runaway portal to hell raging inferno
Replies
52
Views
2K
HearthStone
hoot
hoot
D
Free scrounge but should I take it?
Replies
16
Views
2K
The Wood Shed
sneefy
sneefy
Dajolu
How much wood will I need?
Replies
13
Views
1K
The Wood Shed
Wildflush
W
D
Chimney Fires White Paper - Read This!
Replies
14
Views
2K
The Hearth Room - Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
begreen
begreen
Top Bottom
Back