A few days ago I accidentally over-fired the stove. It was loaded half-full with a new batch of wood, and I was letting it attain a good burn before closing the by-pass damper, since the previous load had dwindled down to only a few embers. Then I got side-tracked and forgot all about the open damper until I smelt the hot stove pipe, probably 20 minutes later. I immediately closed the damper and turned the air to minimum.
Within a few minutes, everything seemed back under control. I opened the damper to have a look inside the chimney. It's a 25 ft tall 6" stainless steel double wall type HT all-fuel insulated chimney; the stove feeds horizontally into the tee at the bottom of the flue, with about 24" of stove pipe. I could see small flames rising from a small fire at the bottom of the tee, resting on the cap. Checked back a few minutes later, the fire had gone out and everything looked normal.
We let the fire go completely out before going away for Xmas weekend. The weather has been unusually warm; 75 degrees Xmas day and still in the low 50s to-day, so I haven't re-started a fire yet, and decided this would be a good opportunity to inspect the chimney while everything was cold. I normally clean the chimney bottom-up using a Sooteater about mid-January and again at the end of burning season, and each time get about 2/3 of a large coffee tin full of creosote, but didn't clean it at the end of season last spring because it had been so warm in February and early March that we used the stove a lot less than normal. I had expected to see the usual 1/8" or so of loose creosote accumulated on the interior wall of the vertical part of the chimney.
Upon inspection, I found about an inch of the usual powdery mix of ash and creosote resting on the tee cap. Shining a light up the chimney showed no soot or creosote accumulation at all, except for a microscopically thin coat of shiny black glaze, as if it had been lightly sprayed with black gloss paint. Nothing inside the chimney looked damaged from the over-fire, so I capped it back, ready for the next fire. I probably won't follow through with the regular mid-January cleaning, since there doesn't appear to be anything to clean. Apparently the over-fire was just enough to burn out whatever had accumulated, and fortunately there wasn't enough to sustain a serious chimney fire. I figure the black glossy coat is from running the stove at constant low heat for the couple of days before we went out of town, when it was too cool to let the fire go out, but too warm for a hot burn.
Within a few minutes, everything seemed back under control. I opened the damper to have a look inside the chimney. It's a 25 ft tall 6" stainless steel double wall type HT all-fuel insulated chimney; the stove feeds horizontally into the tee at the bottom of the flue, with about 24" of stove pipe. I could see small flames rising from a small fire at the bottom of the tee, resting on the cap. Checked back a few minutes later, the fire had gone out and everything looked normal.
We let the fire go completely out before going away for Xmas weekend. The weather has been unusually warm; 75 degrees Xmas day and still in the low 50s to-day, so I haven't re-started a fire yet, and decided this would be a good opportunity to inspect the chimney while everything was cold. I normally clean the chimney bottom-up using a Sooteater about mid-January and again at the end of burning season, and each time get about 2/3 of a large coffee tin full of creosote, but didn't clean it at the end of season last spring because it had been so warm in February and early March that we used the stove a lot less than normal. I had expected to see the usual 1/8" or so of loose creosote accumulated on the interior wall of the vertical part of the chimney.
Upon inspection, I found about an inch of the usual powdery mix of ash and creosote resting on the tee cap. Shining a light up the chimney showed no soot or creosote accumulation at all, except for a microscopically thin coat of shiny black glaze, as if it had been lightly sprayed with black gloss paint. Nothing inside the chimney looked damaged from the over-fire, so I capped it back, ready for the next fire. I probably won't follow through with the regular mid-January cleaning, since there doesn't appear to be anything to clean. Apparently the over-fire was just enough to burn out whatever had accumulated, and fortunately there wasn't enough to sustain a serious chimney fire. I figure the black glossy coat is from running the stove at constant low heat for the couple of days before we went out of town, when it was too cool to let the fire go out, but too warm for a hot burn.
