mid-season cleaning and a few questions

[kerryb23]

we've finally enough of a warm up here for me to allow the stove to completely cool (englander nc-13) so i did a thorough ash clean out and inspection from the bottom. took the baffle plate out and saw some creosote had fallen on it. early in the season, we had trouble seasoned wood that had been rained on and hissed and spit quite a bit. i had another load brought of barn-stored dry wood to get things hot then i throw on one of the damp pieces and had been having pretty good luck since. however, i was surprised to find the creosote. i consistently burn seasoned wood, always. i tapped on all of the single wall stove pipe i could reach and more fell down, probably enough to fill a 1/2 gal jug. shiny little chips of the stuff. i considered getting on the roof and doing a cleaning, but it's been raining all day. maybe this coming weekend will allow it.

when i had this stove installed last year, the guys installed class A chimney straight up through the roof with all of the proper heat shielding where it passes through combustible areas. i do pretty well burning efficient fires and usually just see the heat 'shimmer' at the top of the chimney and very little smoke except when it's just getting started or cooling down. when the install was done, one of the techs told me that while it was important to sweep frequently, in the event of a chimney fire, it would just burn itself out as it consumed the creosote and wouldn't likely catch the rest of the house on fire. now obviously i'm doing every thing to prevent a chimney fire in the first place, but i'd like to see what others think about that above statement. thanks.

 

[tfdchief]

when the install was done, one of the techs told me that while it was important to sweep frequently, in the event of a chimney fire, it would just burn itself out as it consumed the creosote and wouldn't likely catch the rest of the house on fire. now obviously i'm doing every thing to prevent a chimney fire in the first place, but i'd like to see what others think about that above statement. thanks.

Well, as he said, it wouldn't likely catch the rest of the house on fire. A flue fire is a gamble. I have seen a lot of chimney fires not burn the house down. But some do. It is like some people survive a head on collision and some do not! :-S You just want to do everything you can to avoid one.

 

[Hogwildz]

Black & shiny is not a great thing.
You might be getting stove up to temp, but the later burn of that wetter wood may be smoldering, have you checked throughout the butn of a load to see if it is smoking at the second 1/2 or end of the burn?

 

[kerryb23]

inferno, no i don't usually go outside to check because i can tell when the secondaries are kicking in and i should be getting a decent burn. but there's times in the overnight that i wake up to a bed of hot coals, throw a split on and watch it take off. but maybe i'm shutting the air down a little too soon. i've also noticed times where there's a decent amount of charcoaled wood mixed in with the ashes, so that's indicating an incomplete burn, right?