Yesterday's Ice Storm, left at least a quarter inch of ice on every surface, horizontal, vertical, whatever.
Also "yesterday" we didn't run the wood stove all day, since both of us were unable to tend the fire.
This morning, I opened the wood stove door to listen for airflow (a.k.a. "draft") which I can usually hear, and heard none.
The obvious problem: Ice may very well have coated itself totally around the top and sides of the Flue Cap.
If I light a fire in the wood stove, .........yes "eventually the ice will melt off" ............but I'm thinking that the first 20 minutes or so, will produce smoke that is trapped, with no exit.
I've opened the door to the wood stove (knowing of course, that after at LEAST 24 hours or more of NOT burning anything, there are no live embers in the box), to leave it open for a while, hoping that the ambient temps in the house, now bleeding up thru the pipe, will thaw out some of the ice.
Obviously the sun's radiance will melt off some (although the temps today, sun or no sun, are not supposed to get above freezing), of the ice, but that could take a while.
There's no way I'm gonna be able to get up on my roof to knock off the ice, so I'm looking for suggestions.......
If I were to light a fire, I'm of the belief that the lack of draft will do two things:
A) Stifle the fire
B) force smoke to build up in the wood stove and flue pipe, with no place to go.
How would YOU fix this situation so that you could have a fire today??????
-Soupy1957
Also "yesterday" we didn't run the wood stove all day, since both of us were unable to tend the fire.
This morning, I opened the wood stove door to listen for airflow (a.k.a. "draft") which I can usually hear, and heard none.
The obvious problem: Ice may very well have coated itself totally around the top and sides of the Flue Cap.
If I light a fire in the wood stove, .........yes "eventually the ice will melt off" ............but I'm thinking that the first 20 minutes or so, will produce smoke that is trapped, with no exit.
I've opened the door to the wood stove (knowing of course, that after at LEAST 24 hours or more of NOT burning anything, there are no live embers in the box), to leave it open for a while, hoping that the ambient temps in the house, now bleeding up thru the pipe, will thaw out some of the ice.
Obviously the sun's radiance will melt off some (although the temps today, sun or no sun, are not supposed to get above freezing), of the ice, but that could take a while.
There's no way I'm gonna be able to get up on my roof to knock off the ice, so I'm looking for suggestions.......
If I were to light a fire, I'm of the belief that the lack of draft will do two things:
A) Stifle the fire
B) force smoke to build up in the wood stove and flue pipe, with no place to go.
How would YOU fix this situation so that you could have a fire today??????
-Soupy1957