after 6 years burning wood..

[ColdNH]

I finally made the dreaded mistake of leaving the damper all the way open and leaving the house for 6 hours....

Sunday I was trying to get some less then ideal wood burning, had the door closed on the Oslo but the damper wide open. I guess the stove was the last thing on my mind, cause when the wife and I returned home 7 hours later the damper was wide open and the stove was down to coals and a stove top temp of 200ish..

visually it didn't look like there was an damage. The house was still standing so that was good. I should have checked the flu but after shoveling the in-laws roof and busting ice dams for 5 hours getting the extension ladder out and getting on my icy roof was the last thing I wanted to do.

Well i burned the stove last night and it seemed to be performing just fine. So i hope crisis was adverted.

Anyone else ever do this? was any damage done?

 

[fire_man]

I've left the bypass open longer than I should a couple times on the Palladian - enough to get the "hot pipe" smell along with a now discolored "T".

I think I may just look into one of these High Temp Alarms someone posted on another thread. For less than $70 it's piece of mind and can prevent a disaster - although you would have to remain in the house long enough for the alarm to sound.

Glad you got through with no apparent damage. Were your pipes discolored?

http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=279

 

[midwestcoast]

It has been said here many times, but this is the reason for all the clearance requirements, hearth R-values, proper chimneys and liners... And it's the reason we should always follow them. Things could turn out much differently with a bad install or poor housekeeping practices.
Don't know about yours specifically, but quality stoves will generally tolerate occasional over fires without melting down.

 

[dafattkidd]

I think the bigger concern in a situation like this is how much fuel is in the chimney for a chimney fire to occur. In my stove the stove temps increase when I close it down, so leaving it wide open generally wouldn't over fire the stove, just super heat the chimney. Chimney fires are a real fear of mine, so I try to keep a clean chimney for just an incident like this. This way no matter how hot it gets, there's no fuel in there to ignite. Glad to hear there were no issues to report. Thanks for sharing. It's always helpful to have a healthy reminder that we are all vulnerable to error.

 

[Typ0]

It would seem a stove would have to be glowing red for anything bad to happen to it right?

 

[KindredSpiritzz]

in a situation like that i think im more worried about where the pipe goes thru the ceiling joists than i am about the creosote. Always nervous about the joists catching even tho i have the correct tolerances.

 

[DougA]

It would seem a stove would have to be glowing red for anything bad to happen to it right?

It depends.
A cast iron can glow red and you might have problems with joints of sections that expand at different rates and will need to be re-sealed or tightened. The symptom of that problem would be inability to control a hot fire when you turn controls down all the way compared to previously. Certain VC's for example appear to have problems with baffles that disintegrate from what I read on posts.

A steel stove could easily have warped plates/baffles inside that should be examined before using the stove.

My main concern would be checking the inside of the chimney and stove pipe and looking for anything that appears charred in the immediate area of the pipes. As midwestcoast says, a stove system built to code (or better) and well maintained is not likely to have problems from an occasional overfire.

Your Oslo is a big enough stove that an extended overfire could have caused serious damage to the chimney system. I would want to have it checked before burning it real hot again. The problem IMHO is that any combustibles in the attic, etc. will have a much lower burn point for self combustion if they have been exposed to high temperatures.

 

[ColdNH]

It depends.
A cast iron can glow red and you might have problems with joints of sections that expand at different rates and will need to be re-sealed or tightened. The symptom of that problem would be inability to control a hot fire when you turn controls down all the way compared to previously. Certain VC's for example appear to have problems with baffles that disintegrate from what I read on posts.

A steel stove could easily have warped plates/baffles inside that should be examined before using the stove.

My main concern would be checking the inside of the chimney and stove pipe and looking for anything that appears charred in the immediate area of the pipes. As midwestcoast says, a stove system built to code (or better) and well maintained is not likely to have problems from an occasional overfire.

Your Oslo is a big enough stove that an extended over fire could have caused serious damage to the chimney system. I would want to have it checked before burning it real hot again. The problem IMHO is that any combustibles in the attic, etc. will have a much lower burn point for self combustion if they have been exposed to high temperatures.

I guess I am fortunate in the fact that I do not have a lot of stove-pipe, the stove dumps into a full masonry chimney with an insulated liner. so even if there was a fire in the chimney it would have to get through the liner, the insulation and the brick and mortar chimney. (not saying i want to this again tho)

couldn't tell yah if the stove was glowing red, i wasn't there! my only hope is that since the wood wasn't ideal, that hopefully most of the energy was spent getting the wood dry shrinking the fuel source down so that it couldn't get too hot when it was finally dry.

 

[bholler]

It would seem a stove would have to be glowing red for anything bad to happen to it right?

Not at all you could easily light off a chimney fire and have no idea about it from inside meanwhile it could be hot enough to ignite wood that is in contact with the masonry of the chimney. Like said before this is the reason for proper clearances and insulated liners everyone messes up sooner of later and if it is installed right it should be able to withstand it

 

[Stubborn Dutchman]

I relocated this fall and some of the ash I bought was measuring up to 24%. It was a bear to get going and several times my control rod stayed in the wide open position for almost the entire burn. The F600 just never built up enough heat to throttle her back! If your wood was close to being like mine, I'm sure your 500 handled it just fine.

 

[Woody Stover]

How full a load was it, and what kind of wood?

 

[Fastdonzi]

Were the Draft doors open as well? if it couldn't get a lot of air in it may not have got too hot. I went through the learning curve with my first stove, Now I'm more attentive

 

[pen]

Had a family member do this after being gone from the house long enough for the stove to go cold. He came home, lit the stove, and got running around doing things around the house and forgot to turn the air down. In all, what made him realize his mistake was hearing what sounded like ice cracking apart, but then looked up and realized his cap was on fire

No creosote in the stack, so no fire in the stack, just a blazing cap where some creosote had accumulated.

He lucked out.

 

[ColdNH]

How full a load was it, and what kind of wood?

Not packed full, but probably 3/4 full, mix of black birch and white oak.

Were the Draft doors open as well? if it couldn't get a lot of air in it may not have got too hot. I went through the learning curve with my first stove, Now I'm more attentive

Doors were shut and like you said, that may not be a good thing!

Had a family member do this after being gone from the house long enough for the stove to go cold. He came home, lit the stove, and got running around doing things around the house and forgot to turn the air down. In all, what made him realize his mistake was hearing what sounded like ice cracking apart, but then looked up and realized his cap was on fire

No creosote in the stack, so no fire in the stack, just a blazing cap where some creosote had accumulated.

He lucked out.

Well that's interesting!

 

[Offset]

Glad you had no issues with this situation. Agree with the above suggestions to check the pipes for any damage.

You just cannot get out of your routine when operating these stoves. Pays never to be in a hurry I guess.

 

[begreen]

Try to get in the habit of carrying around a timer or setting a timer on your cellphone to remind you to shut down the stove. This has saved my stove from baking more than once.