Meeco Smoke in the stove room update

[Poindexter]

I didn't actually hit post on that. I recognized I was still too angry to talk about this and decided to sleep on it.

I guess leaving it open long enough it must have posted itself.

I'll try again in September.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Hope all will be well with your setup and your wood burning experience when weather calls for it.

 

[begreen]

So after sweep, camera inspection, and mfg. responses, is there a consensus of opinion on what happened?

 

[Poindexter]

Take three.

I am the sort of man who only does a few things, but does them well. Outside of my vocation, at which I suspect I am very very good, I claim cooking and Alaskan as my top two avocations. I got burned hard on the second with a smoke event in my stove room back in March 2018, and I took it hard.

Original thread, with many edits to post one, here: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/meeco-fireex-firemans-friend.168086/

Short recap, the smoke alarm woke me up one night, the flue gas probe was showing +400dF (not a chimney fire), then the CO detector told us to evacuate immediately, so I threw some fire suppressant in the stove and went outdoors.

Between the event and the pro cleaning I got hold of my stove mfr, my chimney mfr and the fire suppressant mfr. The consensus was to do "the best I could" to brush out the pipe while waiting for my roof to be safe for pro eval after the snow melted off the roof.

I pulled all the screws, lifted the telescope half an inch off the collar, slid a white plastic bag under there, got a strong flash light and then lifted the telescope off the stove collar far enough to get my head (with safety goggles) and strong flashlight in there. No chunks greater than 3mm in the white bag, and no visible restriction in the pipe. None. The fire captain on scene back in March opined I had had a piece of creosote peel off the chimney wall to block airflow causing my smoke in stove room - DENIED. FWIW I had cleaned the pipe around Christmas and only burned a cord or two since then - at nearly ideal 14%MC.

And I am getting emotional again just thinking about it. I am really making an effort to be objective here. This event has truly knocked me onto my "hind foot" as the Brits would say.

I brushed out the pipe, and kept my sweepings in three separate bags, lower third of chimney, middle third, top third. Stored those in the stove.

Pro eval with camera on a stick after sweeping was 05-30-2018. paraphrased findings:

1. the inner liner was found to be in good condition
2. no evidence of a chimney fire found.
3. some debris at cap
4. bypass was in good condition
5. air control in good condition
6. combustor clogged (with some crap not removable by any tool in the truck)
7. door gasket fails dollar bill test
8. birch tree nearest chimney is too close (violates 3-2-10) to chimney and should be trimmed
9. appropriate clearances
10. appropriate hearth

I talked to the pro who did the sweeping and camera on a stick. My wife used to change his diaper at kid's church back in the day. He has nothing to hide and is solely interested in me being happy with my stove.

I'll be back with a few pics in a few days. The birch tree that violated 3-2-10 has been trimmed, mmm, earnestly or vehemently or you might say with terminal finality. There was a shovel and an axe involved. That sucker is trimmed.

 

[Poindexter]

If I ever go through this again (please no) I will leave the stove in bypass after tossing the suppressant in, hoping to save the combustor.

 

[moresnow]

Sure sounds like an odd draft reversal/loss issue. Are you running the OAK? Maybe that would reduce the chance of this occurring again?

 

[Poindexter]

Re ten findings above, 1-5 are not actionable.

6. I got a new gasket and a new combustor. I was planning to replace the combustor in calendar 2018, the old was getting tired, but I thought i was good to October or November. I did close the bypass door when I put the fire suppressant in the stove, so all the suppressant goop (powder? gas? smoke?) got run through the combustor on the way to the chimney and made a mess. So I replaced the combustor some six months early.

7. I took my entire front panel off the stove, door and the casting that holds the door, took it to the dealer and had my door gasket replaced by a guy who has done thousands of door gaskets. The shop tried to talk me out of it, $10 part, I could do it myself, $50 installed. I told the guy at the counter I know it is a mission critical part and I want mine installed by the guy who has done thousands.of them.

I do routinely check my gaskets in August before I fire the stove. Mine passed in August 2017 and failed in May 2018. I didn't double check the field tech, I just had the fool thing replaced. pretty tight gasket in there now.

I doubt my gasket was leaking during the event, wrong symptoms.

FWIW on the Ashford 30.0 the door, relative to the knife edge mouth of the firebox, can be moved total left right about 1/4". I re-installed my door and door frame kind of smooshed over to the one side to make the groove in the gasket as close to on center as possible. I got 4 years out of the original gasket with the casting lined up cosmetically perfect and the groove in the gasket a bit off to one side. So far the wife hasn't noticed the front casting is a bit off center, I have done what I can to center the knife edge on the gasket. It looks OK to me knowing it's offcenter a bit, i will let you know if/when the wife notices.

9-10 not actionable.

8. Here is all the pro could find that might have accounted for my smoke intrusion.

item one: Smoked to death birch branch over my biggest BBQ cooker, a UDS or ugly drum smoker. This one is a double decker (two cooking racks) thanks to the nice bio-diesel people at Turner Industries dot com. no affliation, don't even ask about shipping to Alaska. No upcharge for 2" flue outlet instead of the usual 3/4" or 1" outlet nipple requested by the folks running their Volvo's on french fry oil. This smoker runs freaking terrific in spite of violating the 3-2-10 rule for tree branches.



Here is what is left of the birch tree that was messing with the draft (?) on my UDS:



If your browser is working correctly you should notice my neighbor replaced the chain link fence this summer and what remains of the birch tree messing with my barbecue habit is, well, nothing. Dug that SOB out by the roots.

 

[Poindexter]

Re #8 above, none of my trees had leaves on them in March when I had the smoke intrusion. After leaf out, I did have one smoked to death birch branch closest to my chimney visible from the street.



As part of the terminal pruning process I did check my records to see when this chimney was put in (before the A30 was in production), and hit the same growth ring counting from two different places on the rim...



I am not anticpating a repeat of this experience.

 

[spudman99]

So glad to see you update us. While you must still be torqued from that whole experience, at least it is behind you. I have enjoyed your detailed posts about wood drying, and find your contribution to this community valuable. Wishing you the best this upcoming season. Sorry but I have no advise for your problems as you know far more about wood burning than I do.

 

[blades]

I just looked up the topographies of Fairbanks. So I am thinking along the lines of an atmospheric inversion/ Down draft from surrounding country side as possibly being the root cause. My former residence was on the side of a ridge with a line of towering trees ( a block wide) running parallel to the home up the ridge ( 30 feet out the back door). There were times when lighting or reloading the stove that the smoke from same would curl down around the house and then out towards the flat lands east of me. Set off alarms in dead of night a few times- each time at the coaling stage. Never anything wrong with stove or flue, main floor unit. Basement unit suffered a complete draft reversal at a start up ( that was fun) use of it was discontinued with the install of the main floor unit. A 900cfm range hood if set at max would also cause problem with the stove. Main floor unit was connected to an OAK as well that had an S shaped termination at the intake point to minimize any negative draw from rouge wind functions. Dryer did not seem to have any or if any it minuscule effect on stove when operating. just some thoughts.

 

[kennyp2339]

Here's my thinking, you got the stove running pretty hot, t-stat satisfied and closed down to the air trickle since it was 20f and your home is very well insulated, while that occurred the draft lessoned due to the intake air being closed off, since the cat had a huge build up (fly ash?) it clogged not allowing the smoke to escape, since your wood is super dry <14% moisture content it was still off gassing faster than it could be burnt causing a cascade effect of either a huge smoke leak, or a backdraft / flash over which again causing a huge smoke leak out the front loading door and not out the pipe

 

[tarzan]

If I ever go through this again (please no) I will leave the stove in bypass after tossing the suppressant in, hoping to save the combustor.

I'm having trouble understanding your logic here. In what way was the outcome made better by the use of the fire suppressant?

 

[Poindexter]

I'm having trouble understanding your logic here. In what way was the outcome made better by the use of the fire suppressant?

In the moment, with all the smoke detectors on that level of the house going off, visible smoke plumes coming out the telescope joint in the pipe above the stove and the CO detector alarming "evacuate immediately" beebeebeep "evacuate immediately" - mind you I was woken up by a smoke detector going off - the smart thing to do was treat it like a chimney fire, and get out of the house.

Yes, my flue gas probe was only indicating 400dF.
Yes, the later pro eval found no evidence of a chimney fire.

I woke up to the first smoke detector going off. Three of them were alarming by the time I got my glasses on. I was vertical with glasses when the CO detector started chirping. By the time I walked to the woodstove the CO detector was chirping faster. While I was trying to focus on the flue gas probe dial the CO detector started speaking, electronic voice "ALERT, carbon monoxide detected." "beep beep beep "ALERT carbon monoxide detected."

The wife said "what should we do?"

Immediately the CO detector went into full panic mode beebeebeebeep "evacuate immediately" repeated, it was still squawking the same when I closed the exterior door behind me.

I have 6 smoke detectors and 1 CO detector on the same 1200sqft floor the wood stove is on. All 7 of those going off together is enough to wake the neighbors.

The wife called 911, I put the fire supressant in the stove, we both got out, and no one got hurt.

If it happens again the one thing i will do different is leave the stove in bypass so all the suppressant output doesn't go through the combustor.

***I can kind of see your point that since I didn't have a chimney fire I didn't need the suprressant, but something was very wrong. I pay a lot in property taxes for the fire department, and I got good insurance on our stuff. A man has to know his limitations, getting out to let the pros figure out the problem was the right choice for me.***

 

[kennyp2339]

the smart thing to do was treat it like a chimney fire, and get out of the house

Exactly

 

[Poindexter]

And another thing. I finally got around to emptying the metal trash can I keep wood stove ashes in.

Night of the event, with FD supervision, we dumped the metal can full of cold ashes into a plastic can and set the plastic garbage can with a bunch of cold ashes in it on a couple feet of snow over bare dirt.

Then the firemen carried the now empty metal can into the house. They emptied all the burning fuel out of my stove into the metal can, poured a bunch of water in it, and carried it back out.

I dunno if my pro sweep looked in the metal can or not. I had forgotten about it, until today when I was looking for things that could go to the dump.



I see couple small areas on the splits still full length that look incompletely charred.

@BKVP , if someone brings their A game to wood stove tetris, keeps the loading door open until there is a raging inferno going on, re-engages the combustor and runs on high for thirty (30) measured minutes before turning the Tstat down, how big a problem is it or could it be to have an uncharred area like in the top left corner above?

I did leave the metal can at the dump. It had visible rust in a lot of area inside, and the bottom felt spongy when I poked it with a stick.

 

[Poindexter]

Combustor, combustor. I do appreciate the comments, but I don't think I had a combustor problem.

I readily admit:

My combustor was at +/- 80% of expected lifecycle and starting to slow down a little bit.
I have had fly ash clogging before.
I did take the flame shield off and look over Christmas 2017 when I was also brushing out the pipe. No fly ash then.
I was running superb fuel last year, 10 random pokes I would see 14% eight times, 13% once and 15% once.
The year of the fly ash problem I had cords and cords of fuel that measured < 11%.
The bypass door was definitely cammed over when I opened the bypass before opening the loading door to toss in the supresssant.
The bypass door gasket passed the dollar bill test by my evaluation in August 2017, and by the pro sweep evaluation in May 2018.
After the event, my combustor is so caked with suppressant know one can tell anything about what might have been during the event.

I think if I had a combustor problem the smoke coming into the stove room would be coming out the air intake on the back of the stove. I had none of that.

I did see small wisps of smoke entering the room through the telescope joint in the pipe above the stove and might have seen a wisp or two coming into the room where the telescope meets the radiation shield in the ceiling. There was a LOT of smoke collected at the ceiling around the stove pipe, I mean thick, hard to see through and probably a layer close to a foot thick last time I saw it.

 

[Poindexter]

I'm having trouble understanding your logic here. In what way was the outcome made better by the use of the fire suppressant?

I thought of one other thing. I notice when I sweep my pipe the ash deposit gets thicker and thicker as the brush moves away from the stove and gets closer and closer to the chimney outlet.

I don't _know_ but I wonder if I had been having a chimney fire, might it have started at the top and just not yet burned far enough down the pipe to raise the indicated gas temp at the flue probe some 30" above the stove collar?

I was putting on warm clothes to go outdoors when that thought occurred to me, but the suppressant was already deployed.

 

[tarzan]

I thought of one other thing. I notice when I sweep my pipe the ash deposit gets thicker and thicker as the brush moves away from the stove and gets closer and closer to the chimney outlet.

I don't _know_ but I wonder if I had been having a chimney fire, might it have started at the top and just not yet burned far enough down the pipe to raise the indicated gas temp at the flue probe some 30" above the stove collar?

I was putting on warm clothes to go outdoors when that thought occurred to me, but the suppressant was already deployed.

I suppose that theory is possible. In my experience with the BK, if a chimney fire WERE to happen between cleanings it would almost have to start near the top of the pipe since that's about the only place there's any creosote to amount to anything. That's with my setup and annual cleaning but your description sounds comparable.

If it (a chimney fire) were to happen though, I've always theorized it starting with the bypass open and wood catching vigorously. I can't picture a spark surviving the cat and >10' of pipe to accomplish starting a chimney fire that far up. Nor can I imagine that area, that is the dirtiest because it is the coolest, getting hot enough to combust on its own.

I have had a chimney fire though (in an old setup) and no smoke was in the house. In fact, it was sucking air out of the house like a jet engine! Once I ran outside, the flames and black smoke shooting out of the stack reaffirmed what I already new.

After the chimney fire, the signs on the roof, the ground and in the pipe were still obvious! Had I not been home when it happened there would have still been no hiding the fact that it happened.

On a side note, my chimney cap is usually pretty nasty at cleaning time so I just build a fire out of newspaper and throw the cap in. Easiest way to clean it and it's amazing to watch the energy that little bit of gunk is capable of producing!

 

[BKVP]

If you operate the stove with the door open for any time longer in duration to getting the fire started, the thermostat spring will potentially get heated to a point where the blade is shut down.

Given the thermostat does not know the door is open, closing the door could create a fuel rich environment.

It could take some bit of time for the spring to relax and if you turn down the thermostat too soon, you could extend the amount of time before it would relax.

I have found that when I light my stove, I set the thermostat to medium high, close door once flame is continuous and then let fire stabilize.

In a summary, DON'T get the stove too hot with loading door open.

 

[Ashful]

Poindexter, had you looked at your car recently, before the “situation”? I know you run that stove on a very high setting thru your winter cold, and I’ve had issues with steel cat clogging in my Ashfords. Given my (admittedly flawed) interpretation and recollection of the description of the order of events, I’m wondering if this could just be the result of a clogged cat?

 

[BKVP]

As I recall, Poindexter did say it may not have been a chimney fire, instead, something else caused the smoke to back up...plugged cat could do it.

 

[tarzan]

But there was this;

I think if I had a combustor problem the smoke coming into the stove room would be coming out the air intake on the back of the stove. I had none of that.

I did see small wisps of smoke entering the room through the telescope joint in the pipe above the stove and might have seen a wisp or two coming into the room where the telescope meets the radiation shield in the ceiling. There was a LOT of smoke collected at the ceiling around the stove pipe, I mean thick, hard to see through and probably a layer close to a foot thick last time I saw it.

 

[Poindexter]

I had the flame shield off and looked at the combustor face when the stove was cold for pipe brushing anyway, Christmas 2017.

I did not do anything to the combustor face Dec 2017, it looked great.

Chris has said a few times now that a clogged combustor can cause smoke in the room. I don't understand the smoke path for that, but he knows a lot more about this sort of thing than I do.

I have serviced my combustor three times previously. The first one died of old age. The one that died in the March 18 event was acting like it was getting to late middle age, but not quite ready to retire.

The other two were fly ash buildup. For the year of the fuel under 11% everything would be running fine, then on day one I would kinda be looking at the stove with one eyebrow raised. I feel like I am pretty well tuned in to my stove, my fuel, my outdoor temps, have a pretty good idea where to set the Tstat, have a pretty good idea how well I have to tetris to get an overnight burn, that sort of thing.

In my limited experience (2 data points) with fly ash buildup, day one, look at stove with one eyebrow raised. Day two, I know something isn't right. Day three I know something is wrong, start the shutdown process, the day 4, cold stove, check the pipe and vacuum the cat face.

It seems like maybe once enough fly ash accumulates it starts accumulating faster and faster and the stove performance falls off a cliff. For me with my 2 data points.

My stove wasn't acting like fly ash buildup the few days before the event. Maybe it got plugged up through some other mechanism, I will never know.

The simplest explanation (Occam's razor) is the now deceased birch tree was messing with my draft, and the combustor was just collateral damage. The fire captain on scene thought I was having a draft issue, though he explained it as creosote peeling loose form the inner wall of the pipe. The only actionable finding from the pro eval was the nearby tree violating 3-2-10.

No evidence of a chimney fire at the professional evaluation in May 2018.

I dunno fellas. Once bitten twice shy, I expect to be fairly vigilant this year.

 

[BKVP]

But there was this;

Fair enough..

 

[BKVP]

I know better than to ask this (given Fairbanks is well known to me) were there any high winds the evening of the event?