lope liberty scared the p*** out of me today. What should I do?

[kversch]

Had my first run away today I guess. The stove is in the unfinished basement so I don't always spend a lot of time near the stove if I have things to do. This especially seems to be the case now that our newborn baby is home with us.

Well I filled the stove like I normally would not a huge load of wood but a few small splits, few medium and two larger splits 6-8 splits in total. I watched it for the normal 35 min to make sure it set it fine. It didn't have crazy full secondary but they were going good stack temps were the normal 550 600 range with the blower going on low so I left the room to go back up stairs.

About an hour or so later I hear the smoke detectors in the basement stating to go off. I rush down to find the stack temps on in prob thermometer in-between 1200-1300. (one of the labels on the double wall pipe started to curl up and melt) The air was already pulled all the way out. I ran upstairs got some tinfoil (like I've read about on here before) blocked off the two air intakes on the front of the stove. Temps still wouldn't slow and the seconds were raging. I opened the bypass and spend up the door on the stove but the fire was still going strong and temps didn't seem to want to drop all that quick. With a pretty much fresh load of wood in there I figured the only way to slow it down was to get some or all of that wood out of the stove. I pulled as much of the wood out and a bunch of the coals get them outside in the fire pit and finally got the stove to start to cool down. Mean wile the house smells like smoke and hot metal. My wife is outside with our 2 week out sitting in the cold car freaking out.( I felt bad, I managed to convince her to come back inside and be warm) We opened up some door and windows and got some of the smell out.
This isn't the fires time recently the stack temps have gotten a bit hot but this is by far the hottest and seemingly out or control the stove had gotten.

the stove it self wasn't glowing or anything like that I don't really know how hot the stove got I didn't bather to check with my ir gun you know was more worried about getting things cool. Should I be worried about this stove pipe or any part of the stove? what should I check out. Im letting it go out so I can check it out tomorrow.

Would a key damper help in this situation at all? What else should I do if this happens again? This is the first time Ive been nervous about having this stove going in the house.

 

[Tectop]

That would have scared the carp out of me too, glad everyone and everything is ok.On the bright side I would think you just got a good chimney cleaning

Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

 

[kversch]

That would have scared the carp out of me too, glad everyone and everything is ok.On the bright side I would think you just got a good chimney cleaning

Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

thats for sure. I pulled the clean out off the outside of the house and looked up in the outside part of the chimney and other but grad dusty ash inside.

 

[nola mike]

Open the door, wide open. Counterintuitive, but all that cool room air cools down your fire quickly. I've tried the pulling-burning-wood-out-of-the-stove method. Nothing good is going to come of that. What was your stove top temp?

 

[kversch]

Open the door, wide open. Counterintuitive, but all that cool room air cools down your fire quickly. I've tried the pulling-burning-wood-out-of-the-stove method. Nothing good is going to come of that. What was your stove top temp?

yea I wasn't too keen on pulling all that during wood out of the stove but at the time it felt like the only choice. I have a door like 5 feet to the right of the stove so it aided in getting the ask bucket with the wood in it outside quickly.

Im not positive on stove top temps as I don't have a thermometer on the stove top I always use the IR gun. and grabbing that to check the stove top temps with all the smoke alarms going off and everything was that last thought. Guess maybe I should get one now. from past experience when the stove is running with hight 7-800 stack temps. The stove top will still be down around 650 sometimes a bit lower. No part of the outside of the stove was glowing if that says anything. Over never had the outside of the stove glow. The secondary tubes and all glow all the time when the stove is cursing. Thats normal correct?

Having the door wide open is a bit scary I must say. I should be opening the bypass as well correct? otherwise I would have flame jets coming from the seconds out fate front correct.

 

[lopiliberty]

I should be opening the bypass as well correct? otherwise I would have flame jets coming from the seconds out fate front correct.

I too would question opening the bypass. When I load the stove, the flames get sucked straight up the flue it almost sounds like a train. I guess if your pipe or flue is clean it wouldn't hurt but if your trying to cool the flue off why would you want to send a ridiculous amount of flames up it. I've had my stove red several times this year but the last time it was pretty darn red but the flue was only reading 400 on the surface thermometer

 

[kversch]

I too would question opening the bypass. When I load the stove, the flames get sucked straight up the flue it almost sounds like a train. I guess if your pipe or flue is clean it wouldn't hurt but if your trying to cool the flue off why would you want to send a ridiculous amount of flames up it. I've had my stove red several times this year but the last time it was pretty darn red but the flue was only reading 400 on the surface thermometer

see I seem to have the opposite problem. the stove does heat up but the flue seems to heat up well over where it seams it should be for running. if I have the stove top running a few hours in to the bun at 650 the flue seems to run at the high side of 700 at times

 

[DuaeGuttae]

First of all, two congratulations. 1) Congratulations on that new little bundle of joy. 2). Congratulations on having working smoke detectors in your basement. (Yes, I know everyone should, but not everyone does, so kudos to you for keeping your family safe.). I'm just sorry your family had a fright this afternoon.

I wondered if you would clarify a few things from your original post, please. I thought it might give people more insight to be able to offer suggestions.

1). Was this a cold start or a reload on hot coals? It sounded like a cold start if it took 35 minutes to get settled in, but I wanted to be sure.

2) You said the air intake was pulled all the way out. I know that Lopis are different from stove to stove. Does all the way out mean choked down completely on your stove or does it mean wide open?

3). When you opened the bypass and the front door, did the temps drop at all? Do you think you had a chimney fire, or do you think the heat was coming from your stove?

4). What's your chimney length? Do you have excessive draft?

I'm no expert here, so I'm not going to offer you lots of suggestions or information. I'll leave that to the likes of begreen and bholler. I'll just say that I'm glad everything turned out okay and that you're checking the system tomorrow. I don't really want to think about your taking the fuel out of the stove as that scenario really frightens me, but I understand you were trying to get temps to drop. We've thought about investing in a spark screen just for the safety of opening the door up wide with an overfire situation, but we've never actually faced one yet, though there are times we need to watch it like a hawk to make sure.

I hope you get some of the real experts chiming in soon on things to look for in your system.

 

[kversch]

First of all, two congratulations. 1) Congratulations on that new little bundle of joy. 2). Congratulations on having working smoke detectors in your basement. (Yes, I know everyone should, but not everyone does, so kudos to you for keeping your family safe.). I'm just sorry your family had a fright this afternoon.

I wondered if you would clarify a few things from your original post, please. I thought it might give people more insight to be able to offer suggestions.

1). Was this a cold start or a reload on hot coals? It sounded like a cold start if it took 35 minutes to get settled in, but I wanted to be sure.

2) You said the air intake was pulled all the way out. I know that Lopis are different from stove to stove. Does all the way out mean choked down completely on your stove or does it mean wide open?

3). When you opened the bypass and the front door, did the temps drop at all? Do you think you had a chimney fire, or do you think the heat was coming from your stove?

4). What's your chimney length? Do you have excessive draft?

I'm no expert here, so I'm not going to offer you lots of suggestions or information. I'll leave that to the likes of begreen and bholler. I'll just say that I'm glad everything turned out okay and that you're checking the system tomorrow. I don't really want to think about your taking the fuel out of the stove as that scenario really frightens me, but I understand you were trying to get temps to drop. We've thought about investing in a spark screen just for the safety of opening the door up wide with an overfire situation, but we've never actually faced one yet, though there are times we need to watch it like a hawk to make sure.

I hope you get some of the real experts chiming in soon on things to look for in your system.

Thanks for the kind words
To answer your questions:
1)this was not a cold start, it was a reload but not on a large amount of coals.

2)yes pulled all the way out means choked completely down.

3)When I opened the door and bypass they maybe dropped some but it was hard to tell. sounds like a freight train or jet engine when I did. I don't think I had a chimney fire. I just did a mid season clean out at the end of December, early January. I think that the heat was coming from the stove.

4) the chimney on the outside of the house is approximately 20 feet up. then theres a 4 foot second off the stove, a 90, and then 4 feet of pipe to the wall thimble.

I agree pulling the burning stuff out of the stove is definitely not my first choice but it didn't seem to be slowing down. So I thought tithe only way to get a difference was to get rid of some of the fuel. As soon as I did I immediately started to see a drop in the temps.

 

[weatherguy]

I've found there's a correlation when your sphincter is tightest you've probably reached max temp on your stove. You think it's going to keep going to 1000 but it's probably done rising. These stoves like to mess with us like that.

 

[kversch]

I've found there's a correlation when your sphincter is tightest you've probably reached max temp on your stove. You think it's going to keep going to 1000 but it's probably done rising. These stoves like to mess with us like that.

This is probably the case. but with the cost of this set up I really don't want to see anything happen to the stove. I will say I don't think my sphincter could get much tiger then it was. I might have been able to get diamonds out if I tried.

 

[kversch]

Bump. Any idea guys? Should I be worried about the chimney with that heat? Or anything on the stove? Didn't get a chance to look at it today. Hope I can tomorrow the bacement is cold and it chills the entire house when the stove isn't going.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Bump. Any idea guys? Should I be worried about the chimney with that heat? Or anything on the stove? Didn't get a chance to look at it today. Hope I can tomorrow the bacement is cold and it chills the entire house when the stove isn't going.

Without knowing anything about your setup, I feel confident in saying you had a chimney fire.

I think your wood is probably not below 20% MC.

 

[mstoelton]

1. Get the chimney checked by a pro as a precaution.

2. in the future if you think you have a runaway - open the door to the stove. It will lower the temp. within a few minutes. All of the heat gets sucked up the chimney and out, the incoming cool air cools the stove down.

3. If it sounds like a Jet engine then you probably have a chimney fire.

 

[3fordasho]

Couple random thoughts - The bypass on the Fireview I used to own would shoot flames directly up the pipe - the time or two I forgot it was open on a start up or reload resulted in a small chimney fire and that oh-sh*t feeling. I wouldn't recommend opening the bypass on a runaway stove.

Opening the loading door will allow the stove to cool, but if you've touched off a chimney fire I don't think opening the door is the best idea.

Couple ideas I've heard here before that may calm a runaway stove and/or a chimney fire - bucket of sand thrown on the fire or water soaked newspapers on the fire. Don't throw water directly on the fire - much more likely to damage the stove.

Sometimes these stoves runaway because of weather conditions, gusty winds, colder than normal outside temps. - I had one particularly windy evening this heating season, both my wood furnaces were running much hotter than normal. I took some adhesive backed aluminum tape and covered up 50-75% of the secondary air inlets - calmed them right down.

Another cause of a runaway stove is the fuel itself - full load of small splits is a bad idea- always mix split sizes.

 

[jatoxico]

Bump. Any idea guys? Should I be worried about the chimney with that heat? Or anything on the stove? Didn't get a chance to look at it today. Hope I can tomorrow the bacement is cold and it chills the entire house when the stove isn't going.

Do you normally have trouble controlling the stove?

 

[tpenny67]

Would a key damper help in this situation at all? What else should I do if this happens again? This is the first time Ive been nervous about having this stove going in the house.

First off, glad to hear that the situation didn't escalate and nobody was hurt.

On the Liberty, if you look at the air control on the bottom front of the stove you should should see a stop screw that prevents you from closing the air intake all the way out. I was able to remove this screw with a pair of pliers (it's located such that you can't get a screwdriver on it) which allows the primary intake to be fully closed off. This won't fully kill the fire as the secondaries will still be slightly open but it will slow it down a lot more than with the stop screw installed. A damper is another option.

With the disclaimer that I've never had a stove run away on me, I think opening the bypass and/or door is a bad idea. While having a super hot stove isn't great, at least it's extracting as much heat as possible before sending CO2 and smoke up the chimney. When you open the door, it may dilute the heat, but it will also send fresh oxygen up the chimney. If you have a chimney fire, this is worse than the hot inert gas coming out of the secondaries, IMHO.

You may also find this an interesting read: http://www.gulland.ca/florida_bungalow_syndrome.htm

 

[kversch]

Do you normally have trouble controlling the stove?

No this is only the second time I have really had high temps over 800 on the stack. the first time was my total fault I left the air open for too long and let things get going too much and then then flue temp was only up to 1100 before I caught it. that was on a full reload.

Im starting to wonder if this may have been a strong draft and a few too manny small splits/soft wood splits. Temps were a bit on the warmer side and it was a bit windy out.

When I had the flue apart today to check everything out I could feel/hear that draft if that makes any sense. I don't think this was a chimney fire after getting everything pulled apart. There was virtually no build up in the flue, and everything that was in the pipe was very white and fine. How much build up will cause a chimney fire? I took some pics I will have to try to upload in a bit.

 

[kversch]

Couple random thoughts - The bypass on the Fireview I used to own would shoot flames directly up the pipe - the time or two I forgot it was open on a start up or reload resulted in a small chimney fire and that oh-sh*t feeling. I wouldn't recommend opening the bypass on a runaway stove.

Opening the loading door will allow the stove to cool, but if you've touched off a chimney fire I don't think opening the door is the best idea.........

this is my thoughts exactly. its a straight shot up in to the flue if I open it. and I'm not sure that opening the door is the best option with this stove either. seems like the tin foil trick is the best bet. I never would have thought of wet newspaper. Ive heard of the sand and or ash to try to smother out the fire, maybe ill start keeping a bucket near by with some cold ash if this becomes a on going problem.

 

[jatoxico]

No this is only the second time I have really had high temps over 800 on the stack.

Do you monitor stove top temp too? I think if you always find you need to shut the air completely off you probably could benefit from a damper even if its only a few times a year.

How much build up will cause a chimney fire?

Don't think that's a real easy answer. You hear 1/8-1/4" its time to clean but I believe the type of creosote you have have is equally important. The runny stuff (stage 3) is the most likely indicator of a problem and should cause the burner to make some changes.

 

[kversch]

First off, glad to hear that the situation didn't escalate and nobody was hurt.

On the Liberty, if you look at the air control on the bottom front of the stove you should should see a stop screw that prevents you from closing the air intake all the way out. I was able to remove this screw with a pair of pliers (it's located such that you can't get a screwdriver on it) which allows the primary intake to be fully closed off. This won't fully kill the fire as the secondaries will still be slightly open but it will slow it down a lot more than with the stop screw installed. A damper is another option.

With the disclaimer that I've never had a stove run away on me, I think opening the bypass and/or door is a bad idea. While having a super hot stove isn't great, at least it's extracting as much heat as possible before sending CO2 and smoke up the chimney. When you open the door, it may dilute the heat, but it will also send fresh oxygen up the chimney. If you have a chimney fire, this is worse than the hot inert gas coming out of the secondaries, IMHO.

You may also find this an interesting read: http://www.gulland.ca/florida_bungalow_syndrome.htm

I will definitely take a look at that set screw.

 

[kversch]

Do you monitor stove top temp too? I think if you always find you need to shut the air completely off you probably could benefit from a damper even if its only a few times a year.



Don't think that's a real easy answer. You hear 1/8-1/4" its time to clean but I believe the type of creosote you have have is equally important. The runny stuff (stage 3) is the most likely indicator of a problem and should cause the burner to make some changes.

I do monitor the stove top, I have been using a IR gun for exact temps but I think I need to add a magnetic one for quick reference. Had I had one the other day I would have been able to know if the stove was over heating too. I do find that I have been having to close the fire down pretty much all the way (not every time but quite a bit) to ensure that the temps don't continue to climb on me. Then when I do I end up with blowtorch/flamethrower jets coming out of the secondaries.

I have never see the runny stuff inside my pipes. last year I did have some on the shimmy cap itself, that seems to be the only place where I do see a major build up of the black crusty stuff. The rest of the chimney had the brown gray dusty build up.

 

[CHeath]

Do you keep a check on moisture content? I saw someone ask but didn't see a reply. I filled my full one night with some super dry oak and it got hot as a pistol really quick. My englander 28-3500 has a screw damper and a slide damper. I got the screw all the way off and the slide all the way down (it still stays open some from the factory setting) and it took it a while to slow down. No where near what yours did but it finally did. I left it closed but after that I managed to get some newspapers and some water on stand by. This kinda sucks. Makes me not want to bur but I hate the power company so bad lol.

 

[MagKarl]

I'm going to say 6-8 splits on top of existing coals is too much small wood and hard to control. That's a "get a new fire going in a cold stove" kind of load in my experience. I would definitely recommend you get to know your stove top surface temp and use that as your guide. The manual says 800F if I remember right.

 

[Woody Stover]

Im starting to wonder if this may have been a strong draft and a few too manny small splits/soft wood splits. Temps were a bit on the warmer side and it was a bit windy out.

Well, warmer outside temps would equal less draft but high winds could increase it. For sure, loading too many small splits on a large coal bed is gonna give the secondary a ton of fuel (smoke) to work with.