I have a Blaze King, King in my home. It works great up here in Alaska to heat my 3,600 sq ft home. Friday as I'm sure you have heard we had a 7.0 quake that shook the crap out of us. My stove didn't tip over but while I was trying to get to my house after the quake hit I started thinking about what would happen if my stove tipped over while I was out of the house. Is there any good plans to keep these things upright in a big quake. I was amazed that it didn't tip over or it did't at least break away form the chimeny and fill the house up with smoke. I could bolt it down to the floor but after seeing what a quake like that can do, I'm not sure bolts will help much.
Alaska Earthquake Concerns
- Thread starter Tinmanb1b
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
In a mobile home installation, the stove must be bolted down. There are provisions for this in most bks.
Being a bit of an over thinker, and as a resident of a high earthquake area of California, I was going to ask the same question a few weeks ago. In my research I came upon the following website:
http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ep/nvguide/ep6.html
It basically says bolt down the woodstove AND brace the stove pipe. I thought I could have the first done, but the second looks difficult for many set-ups. For now, I keep my fingers crossed and rationalize that I have a fire going for only small fraction of the hours in a year.
Did the earthquake make your stove "walk" very far?
Good luck with the after shocks.
http://crack.seismo.unr.edu/ep/nvguide/ep6.html
It basically says bolt down the woodstove AND brace the stove pipe. I thought I could have the first done, but the second looks difficult for many set-ups. For now, I keep my fingers crossed and rationalize that I have a fire going for only small fraction of the hours in a year.
Did the earthquake make your stove "walk" very far?
Good luck with the after shocks.
jetsam
Minister of Fire
From page 20 of the King manual. (You're heating 3600SF in Alaska, I assume it's a King! 
)
![[Hearth.com] Alaska Earthquake Concerns](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/234/234737-1b455ba821e2094ce6b7a0b508ea2f4d.jpg?hash=GcTLzMzaXe "[Hearth.com] Alaska Earthquake Concerns")
Getting the liner crushed shut is probably a worry for people vented through masonry chimneys, too. Be careful up there, and make sure your CO detector is working!
)Getting the liner crushed shut is probably a worry for people vented through masonry chimneys, too. Be careful up there, and make sure your CO detector is working!
Last edited by a moderator:
mar13, Thanks for the link. As for my stove walking it really didn't. Im not sure how I got as luck as I did but my home didn't take much of a beating. We were within 10 miles of the epicenter of the quake but had nothing broken or even damaged unlike many of my friends all around me that are still trying to figure our how much of their stuff is broken. A 7.0 will really get your mind racing about what could have went wrong. It took me 2.5 hours to get home from work after the quake hit and all I could think about was the hot bed of coals in my king that could be laying on the floor.... Not a good thought. I guess all I can do is put some concert anchors in and hope for the best. And yes this king will heat a 3,600 sq ft home down to about -10!! Last January my gas bill was $37 even with a gas stove, cloths dryer, and water heater
I was just thinking of the same thing and came across this old thread.
What do you do if there is a bad quake and the stove is on its side or the connector pipe is off, a full load blazing away? Anything sprayed in there will be vented into the house, so that makes me not want to use the chemical FE. Water would produce a ton of steam... better than a chemical id think but not great.
Grab a shovel and start filling it with dirt?
What do you do if there is a bad quake and the stove is on its side or the connector pipe is off, a full load blazing away? Anything sprayed in there will be vented into the house, so that makes me not want to use the chemical FE. Water would produce a ton of steam... better than a chemical id think but not great.
Grab a shovel and start filling it with dirt?
Bolt down the stove, make sure each stovepipe joint has 3 screws - 120º apart, and make sure the chimney pipe is properly installed. If you have a masonry chimney keep it in top condition. Our old fireplace chimney top rotated 45º during the last big quake in 2001. The only thing that held it in place was the solid ss liner. Amazingly the top plate silicone held tightly. The newer furnace chimney stayed put with no damage. Our neighbors chimney toppled.
I would pop a fire extinguisher into it. That is, if the whole house hadn’t fallen. My house is so old that it isn’t even bolted to the foundation.
Yeah, I guess the order of operations for any bolting would be house foundation first, then stove.
It’s much easier to bolt the stove down if you’re worried about it since that bolting is required for mobile homes most stoves have provisions for it and instructions in the manuals.
I’ve lived here for a handful of decades and worry more about other things.
Ya, if the quake is bad enough to tip the woodstove the house might be damaged beyond repair anyway. Figure id at least consider my options though. It might walk enough to pull out the connector pipe. My hearth is brick... and i trust brick in a quake about 0%, but i suppose an anchor there is better than nothing.
Ours was built around 1924. It didn't even have a foundation until 2006. Now it's bolted to a new one.
So is your T5 stove bolted to the floor? I checked mine out last night and I'd have to replace the adjustable feet (basically a pad at the end of a bolt) going through each leg. Or perhaps some type of tie around, say, the rear feet of the stove. Seems like a pain to get the bolts just right and into the brick hearth.
Without bolting, I suppose the stove could walk, but it'd have to go +18" to drop off the brick.
FYI: In California you can buy earthquake insurance (checks get sent to Massachusetts), but the deductible is a lot. Something like $40K my case, so you do have skin in the game but perhaps prevents bankruptcy.
It’s pretty weird to bolt down a stove that’s not on a mobile home.
We can get earthquake insurance in WA too but they won’t sell it to people with houses as old as mine without me proving it was retrofit with seismic upgrades.
We can get earthquake insurance in WA too but they won’t sell it to people with houses as old as mine without me proving it was retrofit with seismic upgrades.
Even with newer houses, it's debatable whether or not the insurance is worth it. I pay for it more so I can sleep better at night instead of thinking of catastrophic scenarios. Interestingly, their literature states that they will only pay out as much money is in the pool, so if the big one hits a populated area, your insurance payment might not be close to what you were expecting. I'm in a relatively rural enough area far from big cities , that I'm hoping if I get hit the larger cities will be unscathed and thus the pool can afford pay out our local small population.
Grizzerbear
Minister of Fire
You can get earthquake insurance here in missouri so I don't know that it is all that difficult to get though I would imagine it wouldn't be worth it and I'm sure the deductible would be high......never have checked on it. Tornadoes are the big risk here. The New Madrid fault hasn't sprung in over 200 years I believe so it's not exactly a constant threat like in alaska and cali. I can understand bolting down the stove but if a quake shook a house bad enough that the bolts saved the stove from tipping......the house will probably be a total loss anyways. It's still a good practice though and I don't disagree with doing it. I would use a fire extinguisher if one tipped with a fire in it. Worry about the clean up after the fact.
We had earthquake insurance up until around the year 2000. After the Nisqually quake, the premium increase was too much. Now we self-insure.
Similar threads
