Even experienced folks can do some dumb things!

I just had to laugh and then figured I'd post this. As everyone knows, when you start a new fire or reload, you set the draft to full open. Well, last night I put in 3 splits and went to bed. Naturally that did not give too much heat but the house has been very comfortable. Now, the outside temperature is finally down below freezing again so I figured it was about time to get the stove going.

I put in some ash, soft maple and 1/4 of a super cedar. Lit the stove and left the door cracked just a little. The fire got going nicely in short order so I closed and latched the door. After about 10 minutes I looked and the danged fire went out. Hum... I cracked the door again and it came back to life. Another 10 minutes went by and no flame in the stove. What is going on here? This is not normal at all. But wait! I opened the bypass but for some unknown reason never opened the draft. Wow. Talk about a rookie mistake. lol

So now the stove is running nicely and it took very little time to get it roaring. Now the cat is engaged, the draft set on 1 and heat is coming. Can I chalk this one up to a senior moment?

i know the feeling dennis. i did this about a month ago. i loaded some pieces in they caught really nice and i shut the door and it went to a lazy flame after about 25 minutes it got going ok then i look and the t stat was set at 2. yep. wasn't the first time and probably won't be the last.

You might be onto something there BeGreen.

Bobby, I hope you could laugh at it like I did.

I call those moments brain farts. Worst one I had this year was leaving the door unlatched.

Geeze, maybe we should rename this thread to "Dumb thing's I've done." But that would probably overwork the software because there might be an overload. :lol:

Rookie mistakes; summer job home from college. They needed one guy to drive dump truck at the end of the job. Yours truly got the job. Loader operator drove me to where the dump site was in his POV. We came back, he loaded me up for my first run. Approximately one hour later, when I approached the loader on foot, Gene shut off the engine and said "you forgot to unlatch the dump gate didn't you?"

We had to drive the loader to the dump site and pull the front end of the dump truck back to the ground with chains and then dump the load. Only happened one time, really.

How about I keep it relative by saying I was hauling firewood? (was that a lie or a damn lie?)

Bill in the U.P.

You all ain't got time for MY list of "stupid". :gulp:

why worry about senior moments. Just season your wood for 600 years like me. Working on 2650/2651 this weekend.
sorry couldn't help it.

Dennis, thats happens nearly everyday at my house and not by me. When I leave for work I have the stove loaded, hot and draft set fully closed and temps in the 500-600 range. At about midnight my wife will reload before I get home and she never touches the draft setting no matter how much I preach it takes air to support combustion she just shakes her head and says I don't have time to mess with your stove. You want more wood, I put it in for you! Lucky for me a 41' chimney can overcome her lack of attention.

Full moon.
Seems to amplify brain farts sometimes.

Dennis,

I am pretty certain wood split on horizontal splitter would have fired right up, even without the draft.......thanks for the laugh.

OK...my turn...well...

last night I loaded the stove, got the fire roaring in the fire box, set the t'stat to the normal overnight setting, watched TV for about an hour and went of to bed. Woke up this morning and noticed the house temp dropped about 6 degrees overnight and the cat temp was kind of low, but still active. So, I turned up the t'stat a little and turned on the fans to get the house back up to temperature, but the cat temp never rose...took me about a half hour to figure out I never closed the bypass last night so I never technically engaged the cat. I guess there was enough leakage around the bypass damper to get the cat temp up into the active range but not high enough to keep the house temp up.

Fdegree, will that create any issue with the cat? Plugging, etc...?

Bill in the U.P.

Maybe your wood's too dry! Tough to get old, don't I know. Be safe Dennis
Ed

With the by-pass open the probe will still show a decent temp ..it picks up the stove top temp also.

Are you burning your wood vertical or horizontal? :coolsmirk:

zap

I don't do stuff like that! :-S

I don't know for sure...my feeling is probably not. Although, if the wood is too wet, and the bypass is open too long (I don't know what would be considered too long), it may create a problem.

After closing the bypass yesterday morning, and a fresh load last night, it seems to be performing as usual. Last night, after reloading, the cat temp went up near the maximum point on the scale...BKVP (Chris) has mentioned that burning the cat hot does clean it. So, I think I'm OK. I guess I'll find out as time goes by.

Martini Monday perhaps? :lol:

Seriously though, that same thing happened to me once this year. (Now I don't feel as stupid since it has happened to some of my "Fire Idols" here).
I now try to stay in close proximity after I put wood in the stove, it is very easy to get distracted especially if you are in the middle of cooking dinner or doing laundry etc, etc. I usually use this time wisely...to clean up the rest of the mancave.. >:-(

Can you guess how many times I "check" to make sure the stove door is closed now before I leave the house in the morning? I ain't tellin....I am a lil obsessive.
You guyz don't even want to hear about my "ash removal technique." :shut:

As Emeril likes to say......BAM
Ouch. :lol:
I was gonna' say it's the sometimers kickin' in.

You guys are silly, some of the best fires I have had was when I forgot to turn the stove down. :ahhh: