heard a good one - bad situation

[johnnh]

All,

I'm a pellet burner and usually post in the other forum, but heard a good but potentially lethal situation at my sister in law's yesterday regarding her neighbor..

This is what I know:

Last year, her neighbor installed a wood burning stove in his home. It is stand alone, and was installed using the existing fireplace chimney. The chimney also shares with the oil boiler in the basement. Looking at the chimney, it seems like there are separate flues for each. Because of the high cost of oil, he disconnected the oil boiler.

The house is 3000 sq. ft., and he told everybody he went through 9 cords of wood last winter. But here is the problem: My sister in law walked into their house, and everything - walls, floors, was covered with black soot. He went thorough 9 cords and kept on burning while soot covered everything. They actually breathed all of this in all winter long. Instead of stopping to try to figure it out, he kept going.

This winter he disconnected the wood stove and went back to the oil burner. But they are repainting and deep cleaning the entire home. What could have caused this? I can't believe they breathed that air in all winter.

John

 

[venator260]

Perhaps a down draft coming through the then abandoned flue for the oil furnace.

At any rate, that had to smell all winter long. I can smell a small back puff throughout the house, and I don't have a very sensitive nose.

 

[jetsam]

I've seen plenty of people show up here with a smoke smell problem, and get sorted out by the knowledgeable folks on this forum.

Tell him to get on here and ask for help- they'll need lots of details to figure out exactly what the issue is.

 

[Simonkenton]

We had a nice rental house in Atlanta. It had a gas log fireplace which had a chimney top damper. This was in a nice neighborhood, all our tenants over the years at this house had college degrees, good jobs etc.
We told them, in fact we had it in writing, that to run the gas logs you had to open the chimney top damper. Little chain ran down the pipe, you pulled it down and hooked it on a metal hook in the brick firebox wall. Simple.
Well, we had this one tenant, she moved out and the entire living room and kitchen were how you described, covered with soot! We had to repaint that entire big room plus the kitchen. Which means, I had to do it myself.
This dumb ass tenant had an undergraduate degree from Ga. Tech, and then a law degree. An engineer with a PhD in law, she was so smart she was stupid! She realized that heat was going out that chimney, she wanted to save some bucks on the gas bill so she decided to run the fireplace with the damper closed. How could you stand to live in a house with black soot getting on everything?
And, as you said, not gonna do your lungs any good.

Well, there is a reason for the axiom, "If it can get messed up, a tenant will mess it up." So I had to make the place tenant-proof. I cut the chain off so that you couldn't see the damper chain, went up on the roof and blocked the damper open with a brick. I knew, no way a female tenant is going to get a ladder and climb up on that roof, and not many guys would do that, either.
Tenants in these nice houses just love fireplaces, and they prefer the gas logs, so we really needed to keep that fireplace in that house.
I know, that over the years, some tenants paid a lot of money to send heat up that chimney. Too bad, just imagine the nightmare for the landlord if your tenant turned up dead from CO poisoning. And her a lawyer? Imagine the lawsuits.

 

[woodhog73]

This was in a nice neighborhood, all our tenants over the years at this house had college degrees

College degree doesn't mean anything. Lots of people have degrees and advanced degrees nowadays doesn't mean they have common sense or good instincts, or make good decisions. People from all backgrounds and education levels come in smart, not so smart, and somewhere in between. Not criticizing your statement just affirming how the simplest things to one person may be the most complicated to the next etc

I have a rental property, and I'm glad it does NOT have a fireplace of any kind. However gas logs should be simple enough for most people. That tenant of yours is lucky she didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning.

And to the OP that's crazy they lived in a soot filed house , they are also lucky they didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning.

Good reminder for all of us to remember to keep carbon monoxide detectors in our homes .

 

[tarzan]

To a lesser extent, 9 CORDS of wood in one winter. Maybe he doesn't need a chimney! Sounds like his house has enough holes in it for the smoke to escape

 

[Squisher]

I would also point out that the gender of the tenant really bares no significance on their likelihood to go up a ladder or not. Imo anyways. Capable and useless people come in all shapes and sizes.....and genders.

 

[woodhog73]

To a lesser extent, 9 CORDS of wood in one winter. Maybe he doesn't need a chimney! Sounds like his house has enough holes in it for the smoke to escape

Good point that does seem to be a lot of wood ! I have no idea what the price of fuel oil is but unless this guy is processing his own wood , buying 9 plus cords a winter ( and it's only Feb ) would get expensive.

I only burn for supplemental heat and more full time heat on weekends when I'm home , but if I were buying 9 plus cords ( not face cords ) I doubt I would even bother with wood too much

Ya lots of holes it sounds like. Hopefully they get the soot cleaned and the wood burner sorted out and with out a doubt if they don't have a carbon monoxide detector, and don't want to buy one,I'd buy one for them if they were my neighbor

 

[rippinryno]

maybe they are smokers and you're seeing smoke tar stuck to the wall from their cigarettes? I've seen and painted houses that have nicotene stuck, to the walls and it's very bad, but imagine a smoker doing this for 30+ years in their house, then imagine a person doing it for 1 winter from wood smoke, i think they'll be ok.

 

[zig]

College degree doesn't mean anything. Lots of people have degrees and advanced degrees nowadays doesn't mean they have common sense or good instincts, or make good decisions. People from all backgrounds and education levels come in smart, not so smart, and somewhere in between. Not criticizing your statement just affirming how the simplest things to one person may be the most complicated to the next etc

I have a rental property, and I'm glad it does NOT have a fireplace of any kind. However gas logs should be simple enough for most people. That tenant of yours is lucky she didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning.

And to the OP that's crazy they lived in a soot filed house , they are also lucky they didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning.

Good reminder for all of us to remember to keep carbon monoxide detectors in our homes .

I don't know. Some of the dumbest people I've ever met have an alphabet after their name.

 

[rippinryno]

I don't know. Some of the dumbest people I've ever met have an alphabet after their name.

If they have an alphabet after their name, by definition they are not dumb. They may be ignorant in certain fields that might seem common sense to you, but i'd imagine they are also very educated in fields that you or I would not even fathom to know or study.

 

[peakbagger]

In my college days I occasionally played dungeons and dragons. In order to set up character you rolled a special dice for personality traits. There was dice roll for intelligence and roll for wisdom. On one occasion a person rolled a 10 intelligence ( I think the dice was 10 sided so a 10 was as good as you could get) and 1 for wisdom. We had to come up with how such a character would be played, someone came up with the concept that such a character would invent the A bomb in their basement, and decide to test it in the backyard . I have run into many wise folks over the years who may not have the intelligence and conversely work with folks with lots of degrees that I wouldn't trust to add a quart of oil to my car. Some folks have an aptitude for school learning but are clueless in the real world. It takes all kinds to run the world and for those who have no skills there is always running for office.

 

[begreen]

There are several types of intelligence. I know very good professionals that can't handle a wrench or a screwdriver. And some smart people have the emotional intelligence of children.

PS: wondering if that was 9 face cords. 9 full cords is a lot of wood.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Consider this. Most kids don't have dads that spend time with them. Of the ones that spend time with them, how many dads are good with their hands? If 50% of dads spend time with their kids and 20% of dads are good with their hands, now we only have about 10% of the total population that has a good start at learning anything hands on related. I think my numbers are pretty generous. It might be more like 5%.

If you know it, most of the time, someone you love taught it to you and God gifted you the ability to learn it. It has absolutely nothing to do with degrees or lack of.

My BSME and MBA don't make me smart. But they were very difficult to get and they do mean I understand how mechanical things work. It does not mean I can fix anything my first time looking at it.

That having been said, I understand the frustration with what is a seemingly intelligent person, making very silly mistakes. I remember having a plane flight with an accountant and financial planner that was dead broke because he couldn't control his credit card debt.

 

[rippinryno]

If you know it, most of the time, someone you love taught it to you and God gifted you the ability to learn it. It has absolutely nothing to do with degrees or lack of.

I couldn't disagree more on this subject. while many people probably did learn from a loved one's teaching....I have to imagine many many more people learned from curiosity or the teaching in school. In fact, people pursue degrees generally based on an interest that they personally care for....whether it was taught to them by a loved one or simply peaked their interest at a young age. It is not safe to say "if you know it, most of the time, someone taught it".

 

[Sawset]

One tenent of mine had a habit of burning candles. Smoked the whole place up. You could see where every picture was on the wall from the shadow left behind. Cigarette smoke is another. A quick check of the furnace filters - look for the black ones.

 

[johnnh]

There are several types of intelligence. I know very good professionals that can't handle a wrench or a screwdriver. And some smart people have the emotional intelligence of children.

PS: wondering if that was 9 face cords. 9 full cords is a lot of wood.

Begreen,

Don't know which it is, but my brother in law told me he had an absolutely incredible amount of wood piled in the backyard.

John

 

[jetsam]

If they have an alphabet after their name, by definition they are not dumb.

dumb
[duhm]

adjective, dumber, dumbest.
1.
lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.

There's the definition! The number of degrees you've purchased does not have much to do with how dumb you are.

 

[jetsam]

There are several types of intelligence. I know very good professionals that can't handle a wrench or a screwdriver. And some smart people have the emotional intelligence of children.

PS: wondering if that was 9 face cords. 9 full cords is a lot of wood.

My neighbor burns about that, but he has an old outdoor wood furnace which burns year-round.

I would have to burn flat out 12 months a year to go through that much in my woodstove, I think.

Would get pretty unpopular with the wife and animals sometime in March, I imagine

 

[tarzan]

dumb
[duhm]

adjective, dumber, dumbest.
1.
lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.

There's the definition! The number of degrees you've purchased does not have much to do with how dumb you are.

BUT, if someone has the means and the sense to purchase those degrees, how dumb could they be?

I have come to realize that almost everyone I pass by in the course of a day could likely teach me something. It doesn't mean I'm dumb or they're smart or vice versa. Just that people have different interests. See things differently in order of importance, have different life experiences, and the truly wise ones all have one thing in common, a great memory.

 

[rippinryno]

dumb
[duhm]

adjective, dumber, dumbest.
1.
lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.

There's the definition! The number of degrees you've purchased does not have much to do with how dumb you are.

you can't buy a degree...unfortunately, money isn't all that's needed. I'm curious do you have a degree? Did you simply pay for it and get it? Am i the only person with a degree who remember studying and having to test?

Let me educate you on the difference between stupid/dumb and ignorant.

stupid used in the definition refers to a person who cannot learn. there is a big difference between stupid and ignorant. ignorant means you don't know, stupid means you can't learn or know, i.e., lacking the intelligence to learn, dumb, stupid, etc. most people with an alphabet after their name are not lacking intelligence, in fact they are very intelligent, they're also not stupid, because stupid means you don't have the ability to learn. They are in fact, ignorant, or "lacking knowledge" on the matters you are referring to such as common sense. Lacking knowledge and lacking intelligence are 2 very different things.

So, like i said, they are not DUMB. They might be ignorant or lacking knowledge, but they're not dumb, stupid, or lacking intelligence, if they've earned an alphabet after they're name, they had to prove intelligence, and usually if it's more than BS, BA, then they've proven more intelligent than the rest of the population.

dumb - can't learn, lacking intelligence

ignorant - lacking knowledge,

 

[jetsam]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma_mills_in_the_United_States

 

[claydogg84]

Strange thread. Started with a soot problem and then turned into education, God, and stupid people.

I'd say the man is lucky to still be alive, hopefully he gets whatever the problem is fixed.

 

[jetsam]

At least we haven't veered into politics!

+1 for having this guy reach out and get the chimney issue fixed. Folks here would be happy to help him figure it out.

 

[woodhog73]

Strange thread. Started with a soot problem and then turned into education, God, and stupid people.

I completely agree.

As soon as someone starts to categorize people, opinions will differ. We all sound like a bunch of politicians

I will say this then I'm done with my input. I have a bachelors degree. Yes I had to study and test, but honestly I learned more by just living life, having growing up pitfalls, and on the job training over the years, than any college degree can provide.

And this isn't just true with 4 year degrees. It's true with master degrees, and trade schools. Ask any trades person, they will probably tell you they learned most on the job as an apprentice. I know attorneys that said they learned most everything on the job , the list goes on.

So I guess A) not a good thing to stereotype even though we all have opinions......and B) burning 9 cords a year with soot covered walls is very bad.