concerned for neighbor

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kbrown

Feeling the Heat
Oct 19, 2008
297
SE, Michigan
...ok I know I'm tired tonight, but did I just fall asleep for 6 days?? What happened to the date on those last few posts? Time warp from Oct8th to Oct 14th? :gulp:
 
i see these situations around here sometimes , even had a guy who's mom had a similar setup in a conversation i found out she lived in the house i passed going to work every day. i stopped by with him one afternoon and showed her what had caught my eye along with the "chimney" the windows (older single pane) had "horns" it looked like anyway soot made streaks shaped like horns from the tops of the windows where the soot had been leaking out. had some duratech pipe at the house and with some help we redid her flue , and her son repinted the house, after a couple seasons of burning ,the horns are gone and the flue is issuing clear exhaust from her old baby bear stove.

now im not saying spring for the new chimney , but if you at least attempt to "nudge' your neighbor in the right direction , when you look over there and his setup is safer you will feel good about it knowing you might have extended his existance, worth a six pack and a stop by with the splitter and a few gentle ministrations.

obviously you are a good neighbor or you wouldnt have taken the time to post and look for ways to help the guy. might make a comment about the tax thing if he is thinking about money, or the amount of wood he would save with a phase 2 stove and a proper hookup, how much less work it is to feed that type stove versus the old v-gang or whatever he has. i wish ya luck in your endeavors my friend, hopefully you will be able to guide him to a safer way to burn wood.
 
Damn! Death is written ALL OVER that set-up...
Maybe he uses the green wood to add enough deposits to
the inside of his connector pipe to act as an insulator?
 
Danno77 said:
greythorn3 said:
find out where he works then call him when hes at work and tell him his house is on fire. then when he shows up, tell him if he doesnt change his burning habbits next time it might be real.
LoL, I bet if I hold off long enough i won't have to fake this scenario, it'll just be on fire.

anyway, here's a pic I snapped from quite a distance. Is tarp considered a combustible? lol.


1. Is that stovepipe really going through the window?
2. Imagine how much heat goes up through the tarp?
3. I wouldn't want to live next to him either.
 
greythorn3 said:
u could make yourself fire marshal of the neighborhood.. i bet youd be real popular.

You could hold it down and I wouldn't have to delete so many of your bullshit posts.
 
BrotherBart said:
greythorn3 said:
u could make yourself fire marshal of the neighborhood.. i bet youd be real popular.

You could hold it down and I wouldn't have to delete so many of your bullshit posts.

Ah, the Mod job. Ain't easy, BB. I'd have fried it already :coolsmirk:
 
BrotherBart said:
greythorn3 said:
u could make yourself fire marshal of the neighborhood.. i bet youd be real popular.

You could hold it down and I wouldn't have to delete so many of your bullshit posts.
i hope you don't take issue with that particular suggestion. I actually liked the idea and had already started making a badge out of yellow construction paper. The actual firefighter that lives across the street might take offense, though, lol.
 
Danno77 said:
BrotherBart said:
greythorn3 said:
u could make yourself fire marshal of the neighborhood.. i bet youd be real popular.

You could hold it down and I wouldn't have to delete so many of your bullshit posts.
i hope you don't take issue with that particular suggestion. I actually liked the idea and had already started making a badge out of yellow construction paper. The actual firefighter that lives across the street might take offense, though, lol.

This has to be the friendliest special interest forum on the Internet. One of the things that impressed me about it. Most of the "boards" draw fire from anything somebody posts. This one usually doesn't and since Craig stuck my hanging around here self with the button that can blow away nasty remarks, they will be blown away until the button goes away. :coolgrin:

Call it a power trip. I call it sweeping up the joint.
 
Is it really the 14th already? Dang, I missed my Game of Logging class on the 11th!
 
not really my neighbor, but his house is in my VERY tiny neighborhood.

HIS ONLY HEAT IS WOOD, BTW

His current setup is this
1. A pretty big box stove, Vogelzang style kinda thing
2. It is sitting on pretty much nothing, looked like plywood?
3. It lives on his 3 seasons type porch.
4. Pipe and chimney run is (best guesses on measurements) 2 feet up, 3 feet back to plywood with hole inserted in window, 1.5 feet out with 90 degree elbow and then another 5 feet up to just above the gutter. It's all black stove pipe. It's strapped to the gutter to keep it steady.


His wood is always just cut, it smokes like a SOB because it's so wet.


He tells me that he is moving his stove to the central chimney. I'm not sure if this will be better or worse given what he has done with what should have been an easy install.

he can cut, split, and stack like nobody's business, but he has never really built up any sort of pile. he lives right across the street from a fireman (a good friend of mine).

How do i bring up the subject to this guy that he's scaring the crap out of me? He's done it for about two seasons and comes from a family that (as he described it) sounds like they are experienced wood burners. That leads me to believe that he might actually think this is all kosher, and is more likely to take offense to the advice. I don't want to offend him, but I'm just to the point where I'm afraid he's gonna burn down the neighbors house, and it won't be the annoying neighbors, either, it will be the nice older couple who's house sits really close to his.

P.S. I know he likes beer, so maybe i can use that as a social lubricant.....
 
why not point him to this forum? tell him there are plently of folks ho share the same passion for wood stoves / fire wood / life style and then maybe he'll learn the correct way to burn
 
find out where he works then call him when hes at work and tell him his house is on fire. then when he shows up, tell him if he doesnt change his burning habbits next time it might be real.
 
Stevebass4 said:
why not point him to this forum? tell him there are plently of folks ho share the same passion for wood stoves / fire wood / life style and then maybe he'll learn the correct way to burn
I thought about that, and I probably will, but he's not an internet kinda guy. He could always use the local library, but I get the impression that he burns wood because he doesn't have a whole lot of options, so i don't see him spending money on a computer or on internet (I'd gladly give just about anyone a computer if they really didn't have reasonable access to one, i'm something of a used computer hoarder)

On a side note I did notice that I was wrong about the black pipe directly through plywood. it appears that he has the pipe through a sheet of metal that is screwed onto the plywood. I'm guessing there is about 6" of buffer around the pipe, and FWIW the plywood there doesn't even look charred. Hopefully i get a chance to find out a little more about the hearth, but I'm still sure it can't be more than ember protection.

I guess nothing beats hard data. I've been looking for a reason to get an ir temp sensor from HF, maybe when he's got that thing burning hot for a few days straight I can go over there and point it around and explain to him what flash points for different things are.
 
greythorn3 said:
find out where he works then call him when hes at work and tell him his house is on fire. then when he shows up, tell him if he doesnt change his burning habbits next time it might be real.
LoL, I bet if I hold off long enough i won't have to fake this scenario, it'll just be on fire.

anyway, here's a pic I snapped from quite a distance. Is tarp considered a combustible? lol.
 

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Unfortunately I doubt anything you say will help. Once people are set in their ways it's hard to change them without something bad happening.

Around here last winter I really noticed a lot of peoples chimney's pouring out smoke when it got cold. I'm not going to drive up and down the roads advising people on the proper way to use their stoves. Of course if it comes up in conversation I'd offer my opinion.

Edit: maybe you could make an anonymous call to the fire marshal, I don't think it meets code!
 
u could make yourself fire marshal of the neighborhood.. i bet youd be real popular.
 
Wow that looks just plain wrong. I'd like to get my hands on that tree though!
 
Really good at cutting and splitting eh?

Perhaps ask him to help you out with your pile - that is sure to lead into a conversation about why you are bothering to stack wood a year or more in advance don't you think? Then you could send him back with some really well seasoned wood "just to try it" maybe then he'll see the difference and that could lead to other things.
 
Looks like an insurance claim waiting to happen! :bug:
 
what Id like to say is
 
u should get in there and get to know him, save his life, just cause he is poor doesnt mean he is not helpable.. probably a really good guy that just cant afford to do it right. i see lots of cabins around here that are like that.
 
<edited because this post didn't give any useful information>
 
the date issue is probably why the stupid forum keeps moving slow at times.
 
Start it easy. Tell him about the difference between burning green wood and wet wood. Give him a half dozen splits of dry wood to try. Build a trust thing and take it from there. That is how this freakin web site changed me from cutting in the summer and burning it in the fall and cost me a fortune buying EPA stoves, liners and getting three years ahead on wood so it would be dry enough.

If he bites on the wood thing, swap some with him for this winter. He isn't gonna change the rest of the stuff quickly.
 
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