High wind scare

[Cazimere]

Just a little warning. My chimney is only about 14'. I've never been able to make sparks come out the top no matter how hot or how far open the draft was or even with the door wide open. I live in the woods with lots of leaves on the ground so this was important for safety reasons for me to try and make it do this on wet days after first installing the stove. I've always felt comfortable while burning the wood stove since then.
Yesterday we had sustained 60 mph winds. A tree came down blocking my drive and just missing my truck. It was near dusk and i was out cutting up the tree when i saw sparks flying out my chimney. I ran in the house where my friend had opened the stove door to better see the flames and warm her self. It was only open a minute or so but with that 60 mph wind it was running like a jet engine.
Luckily no sparks reached the ground still hot enough to start a fire but if they had in that wind there would have been no stopping it.
So if your situation is similar to mine, keep the door shut when windy and when your reloading your stove, pick out your wood first and have it ready. Don't open the door, then go looking for the pieces of wood you want to put in. Stay safe : )

 

[wingsfan]

Good advice there.

 

[jadm]

Thanks for that tidbit. I'm always learning something here and today yours is very timely as we have been having unusually high winds in our area and we are very, very dry this year.

 

[gpcollen1]

I think that most anything that would fly up the chimney would be light and burn out very quickly and not really be anything to worry about. Not saying folks should not be careful...

 

[bluefrier]

Last night l learned something new, that is not to load the stove full during extremely windy conditions. The stove burned @ 750 for about 2hrs with two nine inch floor fans blowing at it to keep things under control.

 

[pen]

out of curiosity, are you using a chimney cap of any type?

pen

 

[spadafore]

Very ironic. I was just in front of the stove enjoying the warmth and a holiday cocktail. As I looked outside the window I noticed an orange spark floating to the ground like it was a fire fly. Definetly the wrong season for bugs. Good heads up.

 

[Cazimere]

My chimney has a cap. I also clean my chimney once a month.
My post was only meant to give a heads up to wood burners that under
extreme circumstances such as 60 mph winds, greater care should
be taken to not leave the stove door open any longer than necessary : )

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Over our many, many moons of heating with wood and a short time with wood/coal, I've never seen any sparks from the chimney that would cause concern except when I saw someone else's chimney fire! We quit worrying about it years ago...and we live right in the woods.

 

[BurningIsLove]

While more related to wind vs. sparks, also take great care in opening the door in high winds. My stove will tend to blast out the biggest crack it can find (the fuel door) for just a moment. So I always crack the door for 2 seconds or so to let the draft re-establish first before opening it all the way.