Did I have a chimney fire?

[LukeDawg11]

It was pretty cold here in CT last night (3/23) so I started up a nice fire in my Avalon Rainier. I have a thermometer (Rutland, red) on the steel lip overhanging the glass door in front to monitor the temps inside the stove. After a couple of hours of burning with the damper half out, I noticed the temperature was approaching 800-850 F. I pulled the damper almost all the way out, as I was afraid of over-firing the stove. The stovepipe wasn't turning red and neither was the stove. Fire was beautiful, secondary burn amazing.

When I got close to the stove, I heard crackling inside the stovepipe, close to where it met the chimney. We have an exterior chimney and triple wall stovepipe. We also have a stainless steel flexible liner in the chimney. The stovepipe meets the chimney and there is a "T" inside the chimney, where the liner is attached. The crackling sounded like a fire. I went outside and didn't see any flames coming out of the chimney. There was smoke, however, and it smelled sweet, almost like pipe smoke. By the way, when I have a hot fire going in the stove and look outside at the chimney, I NEVER have smoke (only the heat ripples).

I pulled the damper out, let the temp drop a little, and then opened the damper again. No more crackling, fire burned fine.

Did I have a chimney fire? Even without flames out the top? What should I do?

 

[savageactor7]

Sounds to me like some small chunks of creosote were burnt up...technically a fire. I wouldn't worry about it. With our old non EPA stove we used to do that move daily. Now it doesn't happen...but we burn hot 95% of the time so there's not too much creosote to accumulate and burn. To summarize I wouldn't worry about that Luke.

 

[Corey]

I concur - sounds like the very beginnings of a chimney fire. Or you were using the "clean by fire" method that is sometimes mentioned. You probably had a buildup of that flaky type creosote and started burning the tips off the flakes. You saw smoke out the flue because the creosote was burning in the flue and not subject to any type of secondary combustion - it's also burning in the somewhat oxygen poor flue gases which have already been through the stove.

An interesting thing would be to now pull apart the flue or get to a section where you can visually inspect it. I'll be you still see a lot of fluffy creosote. Either way, sounds like it may be due for a cleaning.

 

[LukeDawg11]

Thanks guys -- I will schedule a cleaning for April/May -- when it gets a little warmer out.

 

[firefighterjake]

Another vote for a "mini" chimney fire . . . I had one of these early on last Fall . . . no real smoke, fire or terrible heat build up . . . but it did sound like someone was pouring a bowl of cornflakes down the flue . . . I chaulked it improper burning procedures (i.e. not burning hot enough and allowing enough creosote to build up to the point where when I did have a hot enough fire it lit up the small amount of creosote I had built up -- now I burn much hotter on a regular basis and clean it out monthly whether it needs to or not.)