And if I really believed that, I'd be a fool.
2 months ago, I watched my neighbor burn down his house due to poor wood burning practices. 3 years ago, I watched a guy 2 doors down the other way have a massive chimney fire.
I like watching my fire change when I turn down the air control. But believe me, I fully know that only works under the right circumstances, which have some tolerance, but not much...a little carelessness here or there, will catch up to you.
Both burn instances I speak of were them burning unseasoned wood, with perhaps some mitigating factors. The whole house burn had, well, an accelerant, because he couldn't get his unseasoned wood to start, he added used engine oil (a regular practice, for him)..to his "new" $80 craigslist special stove because his old one "burned out". The other guy just shoved 2 week old wood in his stove and choke it down straight away and wonder why his chimney caught fire. "I don't understand, I've had several chimney fires before, it usually is a good thing" ..... ok.....I'm not saying I know better or on some high horse...but....
Out were I live, we try to keep our distances, but at times when I do have interaction with the neighbors, I tried to politely tell them, that wood you cut down, let sit on the ground for 2 weeks, then split and put in your wood stove the same day, might not be the best practice.
Aside from an open masonry fireplace when we had when we were kids, which I never paid much attention to, I've never burned wood before moving to this house 7 years ago, when I installed a North Star fireplace in place of the builder special....I can only thank god, that this place existed to say...burn seasoned wood, burn seasoned wood, burn seasoned wood...and oh by the way, seasoned means split and stacked for at least one to two to three years. Not weeks. Otherwise, I'd have learned from them. The hard way.
Right now, it's 21 outside, the North star is up to temp rolling away....the glass is clear...the 2400sqft house is warm without the aid of $$$ propane...
I can only say...
Thank you, Hearth.com members.
2 months ago, I watched my neighbor burn down his house due to poor wood burning practices. 3 years ago, I watched a guy 2 doors down the other way have a massive chimney fire.
I like watching my fire change when I turn down the air control. But believe me, I fully know that only works under the right circumstances, which have some tolerance, but not much...a little carelessness here or there, will catch up to you.
Both burn instances I speak of were them burning unseasoned wood, with perhaps some mitigating factors. The whole house burn had, well, an accelerant, because he couldn't get his unseasoned wood to start, he added used engine oil (a regular practice, for him)..to his "new" $80 craigslist special stove because his old one "burned out". The other guy just shoved 2 week old wood in his stove and choke it down straight away and wonder why his chimney caught fire. "I don't understand, I've had several chimney fires before, it usually is a good thing" ..... ok.....I'm not saying I know better or on some high horse...but....
Out were I live, we try to keep our distances, but at times when I do have interaction with the neighbors, I tried to politely tell them, that wood you cut down, let sit on the ground for 2 weeks, then split and put in your wood stove the same day, might not be the best practice.
Aside from an open masonry fireplace when we had when we were kids, which I never paid much attention to, I've never burned wood before moving to this house 7 years ago, when I installed a North Star fireplace in place of the builder special....I can only thank god, that this place existed to say...burn seasoned wood, burn seasoned wood, burn seasoned wood...and oh by the way, seasoned means split and stacked for at least one to two to three years. Not weeks. Otherwise, I'd have learned from them. The hard way.
Right now, it's 21 outside, the North star is up to temp rolling away....the glass is clear...the 2400sqft house is warm without the aid of $$$ propane...
I can only say...
Thank you, Hearth.com members.
) anyway , he just got it hooked up, and was burning it today for the first time. I told him the smell was not good (when you do what I do you get that feeling) so he said "wanna take a look?" ad we went to the basement, the guy had a nice hookup, but the stove was seriously starving for air, I asked him about the hookup and the flue and whatnot, he had an old stove in there but it wasn't burning right , he thought it was the stove so he got this one. he had just pulled the old one and dropped in the new one, didn't even think of the chimney, I asked him to shut it down and I would come by tomorrow and look at it , even he could see it wasn't right, so he let it go out and turned on his central heat.
Oh, BTW, what stove does he have? 
