Crisis narrowly averted (I should have listened)

[cricco]

A while back, I posted some questions about my chimmney, and the creosote that I removed when cleaning it. I did not manage to clean the pipe that connects my boiler to the metalbestos chimmney because it was cold, and I didn't want to shut down my boiler to allow cleaning this pipe. One poster replied that I should "do it now" because when a problem arises, it will be on the coldest day of the year. Well, yesterday it was 9 degrees here, and windy. I came home from work and decided to get my morning fire ripping, as I usually do. Well, once I got the boiler fully loaded, and opened her up, I began to notice that a freight train was coming down my chimmney.....at least that's what it sounded like. I then noticed that the pipe that I had neglected to clean was glowing cherry red. I immediately shut down the draft fan, closed all air sources, and blasted a fire extinguisher into the barometric damper hole. I was able to put the fire out pretty quickly, but I then spent the next 3 hours removing burning logs from the boiler, and removing and cleaning the pipe. I had my neighbor (a firefighter) come and inspect the chimmney to make sure that I hadn't damaged it. He said it all looked fine, and that it really wasn't nearly as dirty as many that he has seen. I then got it all back together, and all is good once again. I just wanted to say "Thank you" to those that warned me, and also to share my lesson learned. This could have turned out much worse. Merry Christmas folks.

 

[eernest4]

A near miss is as good as a mile .
You dodged a bullet.
And I am sure that you won't let them get a second shot. :lol:

 

[lugoismad]

Where is your boiler at?

My wood furnace is in the garage, and I cleaned my chimney pipe out yesterday.
I was able to keep a fire going, without removing the logs or anything at all. I just closed off the air sources,
waited a few minutes, and took apart the chimney. I wouldn't do this in my living room, but with the garage door open, I was just fine.
Some smoke came out of the furnace obviously, but most of it either went up the chimney hole at the top of the ceiling, and the rest
was taken care of by the open garage door.

If your boiler is in your basement, as long as you can open a few windows, I think you'd be just fine if your just taking the chimney off for a few minutes to clean it out.

 

[firefighterjake]

. . . . One poster replied that I should "do it now" because when a problem arises, it will be on the coldest day of the year. . . ..

I've been a firefighter for 18 years now and Murphy's Law always dictates that chimney fires only get called in on the snowiest and coldest day of the year . . . and most often it's late at night . . . winds are howling at about 37 mph and the chimney can only be accessed by getting on a very steep and slick metal roof.

Murphy's Law also dictates that the worse structure fires are reported on either the coldest day of the year so that everything freezes up solid or on the hottest day of the year so everyone is dropping like flies from heat exhaustion.

Glad you dodged the bullet . . . and that said, we've all been where you have . . . maybe not in the same situation, but we've all been in situations where we know we need to do some preventive maintainance and have put it off until it is too late . . . most recently for me it was me not checking out my septic system after my wife mentioned how the water seemed to be draining rather slowly from the tub . . . two days later I had water backing up into the basement.

 

[cricco]

Where is your boiler at?

My wood furnace is in the garage, and I cleaned my chimney pipe out yesterday.
I was able to keep a fire going, without removing the logs or anything at all. I just closed off the air sources,
waited a few minutes, and took apart the chimney. I wouldn't do this in my living room, but with the garage door open, I was just fine.
Some smoke came out of the furnace obviously, but most of it either went up the chimney hole at the top of the ceiling, and the rest
was taken care of by the open garage door.

If your boiler is in your basement, as long as you can open a few windows, I think you'd be just fine if your just taking the chimney off for a few minutes to clean it out.

My boiler is in my basement. Besides the smoke, I would have most likely set off my smoke detectors, which would have really drove me nuts.

 

[BrotherBart]

Don't EVER take the pipe off of a burning stove in the living space. That is nothing but a carbon monoxide pump the minute you do it.