Kuuma stove pipe keeps lighting on fire

[begreen]

Moving this thread to the boiler room where fellow Kuuma owners can chime in.

 

[JRHAWK9]

I think they are all creosote makers.

That's the problem, you think but you don't know. You have owned two really crappy furnaces, of which I would NEVER even think to put in the basement of any house I or any loved ones of mine own.

Another big problem at least with the two I had, was if you lost power and the blower couldn't run, they will go nuclear on you. No air between the burn box and the outer cabinet.

That's because you purchased ones which were not rated for gravity flow. This is again a decision you made. If this was a concern/problem of yours you should have purchased one which was rated for gravity flow OR install a battery backup/generator system.

 

[JRHAWK9]

Has the OP called Lamppa?

 

[brenndatomu]

That's the problem, you think but you don't know. You have owned two really crappy furnaces, of which I would NEVER even think to put in the basement of any house I or any loved ones of mine own.

Show 'em that pic of the inside of your chimney...

That's because you purchased ones which were not rated for gravity flow. This is again a decision you made. If this was a concern/problem of yours you should have purchased one which was rated for gravity flow OR install a battery backup/generator system.

Or install an emergency heat dump door...that can be done on almost any wood furnace

 

[ratsrepus]

That's the problem, you think but you don't know. You have owned two really crappy furnaces, of which I would NEVER even think to put in the basement of any house I or any loved ones of mine own.



That's because you purchased ones which were not rated for gravity flow. This is again a decision you made. If this was a concern/problem of yours you should have purchased one which was rated for gravity flow OR install a battery backup/generator system.

Well I guess Im just a awful person. Thanks for pointing that out, Im sure someday you'll be man enough to respond to people with out being a complete jerk

 

[MN~Nice]

I have a central masonry chimney in my house with a clean out hatch

Is the stove pipe entering to deep past the thimble in the chimney?

no my liner has a tee on the bottom with a collar that comes out flush to the outside of the chimney and my stove pipe connects to that probably 2" or 3" into the collar

 

[JRHAWK9]

Well I guess Im just a awful person. Thanks for pointing that out, Im sure someday you'll be man enough to respond to people with out being a complete jerk

Awful person, heck no (although it's possible seeing I don't know you ). Just mis-informed.


As far as the OP. Like others have stated, I think it's just a combination of dry pine and higher than what he was used to draft due to the new liner and not adjusting his loading procedure accordingly. I don't know this for sure and I think he should still contact Daryl just to be safe.

 

[MN~Nice]

Just curious how your looking up the chimney if it’s attached to a liner.

I have a central masonry chimney in my house with a clean out hatch. I didn't put a ash cap on the bottom of my liner as there's no way I could reach up in there to ever remove it for cleaning. so with a flashlight and mirror I am able to look all the way up my chimney

 

[JRHAWK9]

Is your clean out hatch sealing properly when it's closed?

 

[Fred61]

Didn't get how you terminated your liner but if any smoke/exhaust comes in contact with that high mass chimney it wouldn't take long to build up a "collar" of creosote due to the cooling effect. I've only pine a few times in my lifetime so the question arises. Is the residue from pine different/more flammable because of the pitch. That's east coast talk: pitch, tar gum, etc?

 

[brenndatomu]

I have a central masonry chimney in my house with a clean out hatch. I didn't put a ash cap on the bottom of my liner as there's no way I could reach up in there to ever remove it for cleaning. so with a flashlight and mirror I am able to look all the way up my chimney

I have the same setup...only on an outside wall. What I did so that I could cap the tee and still clean it out was to have the bottom of the tee crimped, then clamped a short section of liner onto it, just long enough to get down to the cleanout door. The cap can then put removed through the cleanout door...I keep a brick under the cap to make sure it can't come off until I'm ready.

 

[begreen]

Make sure that cleanout door has an air tight seal on it. If air infiltrates at the door it will dilute and cool the flue gases causing creosote to condense further up the flue. You can make a basic seal by putting a bead of silicone around the rim and then closing the door on it. Or just used duct tape.

Another source of dilution and cooling can be a barometric damper on the stove pipe. And if the chimney has any cracks or leaks in it they can also be a source of cold air getting sucked into the liner. For this reason I prefer something like brenndatomu's solution with the tee extended and a cap on the bottom of the extension.

 

[brenndatomu]

You can make a basic seal by putting a bead of silicone around the rim and then closing the door on it

I like to use wax paper as a release on the surface that I want the silicone to not stick to...have had good luck with it

 

[maple1]

Sounds to me like a simple case of too much chimney draft? You should get a manometer and measure it. You might need a barometric damper. I suspect this wouldn't be happening with different wood.

 

[BoiledOver]

Luckily I've become paranoid and watch it like a hawk for about 20 minutes every time I load it up. When it does take off I cut air off and it starts to cool down.

When I am loaded up and running my stove probe reads between 400 and 450 on avg. when it gets down to around 250 I know it's just coals and it's time to load it up again. But if I take too much time putting wood in the temps on the thermometer skyrocket until I shut the whole stove down. It only happens when I open the smoke bypass tho. If it's open along with the door and that thermometer reads 300 it takes off on me even if there is only a minimal amount of coal in the firebox.

The fire doesn't have to be burning at all for it to happen. Even if I have coals in the firebox it still happens. To clarify I mean the stove pipe temps skyrocket and I cut the air out to choke it off. This is when I use a mirror and flashlight to look up chimney to verify I don't have fire transfer into the chimney liner. What I usually see is a small clump of smoldering embers where the stove pipe attaches to chimney liner.

I'm just trying to figure out if my stove pipe is the cause or is my furnace damaged in some way that might cause this kind of stuff.

These temp spikes are to be expected. When the firebox door is opened in the Eko 25 and there is still some sticks remaining, flue temps can quickly jump to over 1000F. This is caused by the added oxygen to an active fire that has a good exhaust draft. It sounds like you have a very good draft in your chimney, which is good.

Is this about what you are trying to convey? When first using the heater you experienced a chimney fire. You then addressed that issue with a new liner. Now you see the exhaust temps skyrocket while you are reloading.

As stated, this "to me" is expected. I see that often and the temps quickly return to the proper flue temps once the door is closed and blower is restarted. I say quickly even though the gauge is a bit slow at reacting to a temp drop, my manual gauge looks much like yours. It is a kiln thermometer.

For years with an old style wood stove, I held to a daily procedure of a hot and fast fire first thing in the morning. This was to clean the chimney of any creosote. I have never in many, many years experienced a chimney or flue fire.

Best of luck in getting to the bottom of this concern.

 

[Fred61]

If you're comfortable knowing that the liner above is free of creosote, let it burn. I've observed thin coatings of creosote burning within a chimney. It looks like a photo of a grass fire taken from a distance. thin glowing streaks that ignite for a few seconds. Doesn't make much heat. Not enough fuel.

 

[maple1]

The thread is a bit confusing. Title pretty well says chimney fires - but also from posts it sounds rather like strong draft is sucking firebox fire into the smoke pipe when the door/bypass is open. Maybe also creating some secondary burn in the smoke pipe - truly dry pine would be pretty flammable.

My old boiler used to do that (not the secondary thing), I had to watch it when the wind was gusting outside. It had a pretty direct path from the firebox to the smoke pipe.

 

[Bad LP]

For testing purposes is there any way you could acquire some dry hard wood, say at the local store by the small bundle and see what happens when you reload the fire box with something dry other than pine?

We all know that dry pine takes off like a wildfire at the touch of any ignition source.

On my old stove in the basement I would purposely set a dry kindling fire to clean out any creosote that might have formed. When I replaced that pipe for another stove prior to my boiler install the pipe and flue tiles were very clean.

 

[lampmfg]

The Kuuma 1 is why we designed the Kuuma Vapor-Fire 100 and 200. We took what worked really well and changed the rest. We figured out that to burn the cleanest, it needed to be automated. Call the shop at 218-753-2330 or shoot us an e-mail at [email protected] and we will help you the best we can. I don't think we've sold one for 15-20 years.

 

[MN~Nice]

The thread is a bit confusing. Title pretty well says chimney fires - but also from posts it sounds rather like strong draft is sucking firebox fire into the smoke pipe when the door/bypass is open. Maybe also creating some secondary burn in the smoke pipe - truly dry pine would be pretty flammable.

My old boiler used to do that (not the secondary thing), I had to watch it when the wind was gusting outside. It had a pretty direct path from the firebox to the smoke pipe.

You are correct, I am indeed meaning chimney fire. I played around with it the last couple days.
I use a spot eater to clean my chimney and flue, I ran it up and down 3 times both up the chimney and stove pipe.

Not much spot in chimney or stove pipe. Maybe a pop can full out of the stove pipe.

But I was indeed experiencing a fire inside my stove pipe.

 

[maple1]

You are correct, I am indeed meaning chimney fire. I played around with it the last couple days.
I use a spot eater to clean my chimney and flue, I ran it up and down 3 times both up the chimney and stove pipe.

Not much spot in chimney or stove pipe. Maybe a pop can full out of the stove pipe.

But I was indeed experiencing a fire inside my stove pipe.

That is still confusing. A chimney fire isn't the same as fire being sucked into the stove pipe.

 

[laynes69]

The only way that you would produce a chimney fire after a few days of cleaning, would be if you had glaze deposits which weren't removed during brushing. Deposits like glazing are hard to remove, and are very flammable. I can't tell you how the old Kuumas were designed, however it's common like some mentioned for flames to reach a flue pipe, especially on a simple baffle system.

I am glad there's threads like this however, there is a same Kuuma as the OP listed locally here on Facebook. It looked old, and I didn't see any computer controls on it. It's nice for Kuuma to comment and mention these models are not the current clean burners, otherwise I would just assume they were the same as the others.

 

[BoiledOver]

@MN~Nice Did you read post #40 on this page? Please respond to it.

A chimney fire will likely have flames blow out the top. Are you certain you are having a chimney fire?

 

[brenndatomu]

The only way that you would produce a chimney fire after a few days of cleaning, would be if you had glaze deposits which weren't removed during brushing

That's a real good point, glaze will puff up like popcorn when heated to a fairly high temp, and then if it is not taken to a temp that will ignite, it will just kinda glow...I have played around with the propane torch before, heating creosote chunks that were cleaned out of the chimney...just to see what it was like when it starts burning (it is actually kinda hard to light, and doesn't stay burning real well)(but this is only outside of a chimney situation...inside a chimney I'm sure it acts totally different, due to the column of preheated air blasting past...)

 

[MN~Nice]

Sorry for the delay in posting updates.
So I went through and cleaned my whole system again. My wood is dry, I burned a "hot" fire for approximately 6 hours and inspected my chimney again. My liner is clean as a whistle but my black stove pipe has a thin puffy/fuzzy coating on the walls that falls off if touched.

The only variable I can think of is I do not have a T-cap on the bottom of my liner as I cannot access this through the masonry chimney cleanout hatch for cleaning.

Would this condition possibly be causing my stove pipe fire issue?