central boiler fire out of control

[adamant]

what a night! i am a new owner and with little experience with my 6048.
after loading it today to the max i wonted to see how it was doing. after opening the door it looked like not much was going on inside. i turned around to get the hoe and flames was billowing out the stack!the spark arrester was glowing red,she was making some noise. i shut the door to tame it down. never seen anything like it. i was ready to dial 911. lol ..
you guys ever experienced anything like this?

 

[antos_ketcham]

Before I had my Greenwood I had a CB 5036. I had a similar situation minus the spark arrestor - I didn't have one. Basically the water inside the water jacket was starting to boil and it sounded like someone was pounding on the boiler with a sledge hammer - it was the sound of big bubbles. So I immediately shut the door and the thing settled down after a few minutes. I did see some steam coming out of the relief vent on top - but not enough to make me feel I had to add more water.

What I learned from the experience and what I now do with my GW is after I fill it I leave it alone until I am sure it has burned down. This took some getting used to for me because with my woodstoves I was/am always fiddling with them, opening the door, etc.

Shouldn't be any harm done to your unit. Just make sure the water in the sight glass looks good.

My 2 cents - unless you live where wild fire is a danger, I'd remove the cap. You'll get a better draft and there will be nothing for creosote to cling to (screen). If you shut it down in the summer - just put a 5 gallon pail over the stack to keep out rain.

Pete

 

[leaddog]

You lite up the creasote up in the chimney. Every one thinks that you can fill up a OWB no matter what the outside temp and go for the LONG burns. You need to fill only what wood you need for 8 or 10 hrs max. When you fill it all the way up it sets and smolders and makes LOTS of creasote and wastes wood. It is even worse with less that DRY wood. I know as I have had a OWB. Don't fall for the used car sales talk about loading up for two days heat. that is one of the reasons that OWB have such a bad name. Same as You can burn green wood. You can but are wasteing wood and makeing smoke and makeing a bad name for them. If you fill and use proper wood the CB will burn quite clean and be a good neighbor and you will not have to burn so much wood. That black stuff is because you are not burning properly. I've been there and done that and I'm still learning.
leaddog

 

[jebatty]

You probably also experienced some explosive combustion, which can be really dangerous. Limited air inside the firebox results in lots of gases just waiting to combust. A lot of these just go up the chimney unburned, no comment on polluting effect. When you open the door, lots of oxygen is fed into the firebox, and those gases explode into combustion. The extra heat can result in combusting the creosote in the chimney also.