Over fire in a soapstone

[nvanhar]

Just had a bit of a scary situation. I had my Equinox warmed up and decided (I guess foolishly) to burn up a bunch of birch branches to get them out of my way. I had initially stacked them there to use as kindling, but they weren't burning and I assumed they were wet...as such, I figured I was safe to load the stove with them (they were all < 1" in diameter). I had the air intake at about 50%. Well, walked upstairs and started to smell smoke - the smoke was coming out of the seams of the chimney pipe and the fire was out of control. I closed down the air intake all the way and opened all the windows and doors. Smoke alarms going off, smoke everywhere, and then I notice that the chimney pipe was glowing red in one location. Holy S**T. I went ahead and sprayed the fire down with my ABC/dry fire extinguisher. Now fire is out, stove is cooling down (the thermometer never registered above 500) and I'm wondering if I just ruined my stove with the dry fire extinguisher. Any comments on how I should have handled this differently? (aside from not loading it with kindling that apparently WASN'T wet)...

 

[begreen]

Sounds like there was a massive outgassing that continued secondary burning up into the chimney. The solution is to never build a big fire out of kindling. Opening the stove door might have been enough to slow down the fire. The main thing is to keep a cool head.

 

[nvanhar]

Thanks for your comment. I think I would have played it cooler had I not noticed the stove pipe glowing red. That was what pushed me to spray the fire down. I thought about leaving the door open, but I was worried that the rush of oxygen would just make it worse.

 

[begreen]

I understand, it's unnerving to see that great ball of fire. The rush of air breaks the vacuum in the stove that pulls air through the secondary and primary air ports. The large inrush of air helps cool down the burn.

 

[DougA]

I have the same stove and I've had it very hot under very similar circumstances. Birch is great for a fast, hot fire. Your stove top thermometer won't register what was really going on inside the stove because there is such a long delay in the soapstone getting hot. I'm guessing you were 1,500 or more on your flue gasses and that's getting close to their limit. There is very little chance that you damaged the stove but I would have someone carefully check the stove pipe and chimney. If the stove pipe is single wall, I'd suggest going to double wall to be a bit safer and for better draft. Soapstone and cast iron are going to still be standing there when the rest of your house is in ashes - my guess anyway and I don't want to try it to prove it.

Even with the air control closed all the way on an Equinox, there is still quite a bit of air coming in as you have found out. I am buying a damper for mine to help out in that exact scenario. You can damper the OAK (if you have one) or the stove pipe.

Last thing I would seriously recommend is to buy the Auber (or another make) flue thermometer. It has a digital readout and an alarm that you can set. If the flue gasses hit your alarm temp., you will hear the alarm go off and can react a lot sooner before the smoke alarms are going off.
http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=292

 

[nvanhar]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I have a double wall stove pipe. I never liked the idea of putting a hole into my stove pipe to install a flue thermometer, but after this incident I will definitely talk to my husband about it. Argh...so you guys are saying that if I had just opened up the door to the stove, that the fire would have dissipated quickly enough to be safe? Even with that red hot glowing area of the stove pipe? That really freaked me out. It even left behind some cracking on the "paint" of the black pipe.

I have cleaned out the portions of the stove that I can get to and I am calling our chimney sweep today to schedule someone to come out and inspect/clean. I'm worried that there will be a layer of chemicals inside the stove up in the areas that I can't reach that will continue to create smells. Our house smells pretty bad right now.

 

[begreen]

Whatever smell is in the stove or stove pipe should be pulled out by the chimney draft. What may be smelling bad is burning of the paint on outside of the stove pipe. It's good to have it inspected for safety.

 

[DougA]

There has been a few lengthy discussions on how to react when you have an overfire. In my case, with exactly the same stove full of too dry, too small wood, my personal opinion is that you did the right thing. Four cu ft of kindling is something to recon with. I did open the stove wide and it does react fairly quickly and is a good solution but it's also not without danger of wood pieces/sparks flying out. The goal is to introduce a massive amount of fresh air to dilute the heat. I threw a glass of water on the flames and got scolded by the experts here but a few suggested sand and I think that is a good choice to have a pail of sand nearby in the unlikely event it should ever happen again.

Since you had red hot double wall stove pipe, I would suggest you replace it or at the very least, have the chimney sweep take it apart and inspect each piece. It's just not worth the risk. If the outside is red hot, the inside would have been white. BTW, the paint smell is indeed very disgusting but far better than the smell of a house that has burned down.

Glad things did not get worse.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Red double wall? Wow.

 

[Smoked]

Red double wall? Wow.

Was this a chimney/stovepipe fire too?

 

[fire_man]

I never liked the idea of putting a hole into my stove pipe to install a flue thermometer, but after this incident I will definitely talk to my husband about it.

auberins also makes a washer style sensor mount for the pipe.

 

[webby3650]

Was this a chimney/stovepipe fire too?

I would say most definitely! To get double wall glowing in such a short amount of time there is no doubt there was some creosote burning in there.

 

[Jersey Burner]

Sorry to hear of the fire. Since I'm new to wood burning I wanted to know how to deal with a chimney fire as well. In addition to the other recommendations of opening the door quickly to get a rush of air or using sand, I also purchased the Rutland 3412 Chimney Fire Suppressent. It's about $22 on Amazon. It's supposed to put out a chimney fire within 22 seconds by clearing the oxygen in the stove/chimney. I have not used it (hope I never do), but there are plenty of reviews/videos available. Good Luck

 

[DougA]

auberins also makes a washer style sensor mount for the pipe.

That will not tell you the temperature of the flue gases (super important) and won't be at all accurate on double wall pipe. I think that you can put two sensors on some Auber units. If so, that might be a choice for the second one although there was a thread recently about someone having problems with the sensor mount accuracy.

I never liked the idea of putting a hole into my stove pipe to install a flue thermometer, but after this incident I will definitely talk to my husband about it.

To install a flue sensor, all you need to do is drill a tiny 1/8" hole through both walls and the sensor is a very tight fit with no smoke leaks on either one I did. Then, you drill a smaller hole for the short screw to go into the outside wall - not both walls. If you have a good self tapping screw, you don't even need to drill the hole. The sensor rod sits right in the middle of the chimney pipe. I installed mine in the very back side and it doesn't show at all. Watch that you don't kink the wires. The only downside is that the red LED display is a bit distracting but it can be mounted 6' away or buy the longer sensor and go anywhere. I hope they go wireless soon so I can get a warning on my phone. Someone on the forum did rig that up but it seemed a bit too much for my feeble brain.

 

[mass_burner]

auberins also makes a washer style sensor mount for the pipe.

Requires electricity, not much use in an outrage.

 

[fire_man]

The problem with the probe is that they are not as reliable as the washer style long term and it makes cleaning the pipe harder.

Pipe temp is what you are trying to measure when you are concerned about overfire - yes it's a time delay compared to the flue gas but still much better than waiting for the pipe to smell from being too hot and having an "oh S!*t moment" . Agreed on the double wall comment - a probe is necessary.

Not sure I understand the comment "Requires electricity, not much use in an outrage" since what difference does it make if it's probe or washer style? And if it functions 98% of the time just be careful while reloading during the 2% of time there is a power outage. Most the time the critical time you need to monitor is when you are first firing up the stove on reload and get distracted for a minute.

 

[Jersey Burner]

I hope they go wireless soon so I can get a warning on my phone. Someone on the forum did rig that up but it seemed a bit too much for my feeble brain.[/QUOTE]

I have 2 Auber units (chimney probe and stove top which I purchased after reading a thread you posted) in addition i have a Lascar dual channel WiFi thermocouple (another Amazon find). The company that makes the WiFi unit hosts a cloud so you can see the readings from anywhere on any device. The cloud service is free if you only have 2 sensors. Was very easy to install.

 

[DougA]

The problem with the probe is that they are not as reliable as the washer style long term and it makes cleaning the pipe harder.

Not at all. I've had my probe 3 yrs and run the stove 24/7 so I can't comment on how reliable they might be in 10 yrs. Once it goes, you simply buy a new probe which is pretty cheap. To clean the pipe, one screw to loosen probe, pull out, clean pipe, then reinsert and screw in. If that's difficult, maybe you're right.

 

[nvanhar]

Okay so the fact that my double wall pipe was glowing red in an [albeit] small area definitely means that I had a stovepipe fire as well...that much I figured. I had the stove cleaned and inspected in the spring after our first season using it and he told me that there was no true creosote present and that we were burning effectively. But I guess that massive amount of fire had to go somewhere and up it went? Do you think it is possible that I damaged the baffle or "upper" parts of the stove with that much heat?

I like the idea of having the chimney fire suppressant on hand...will look into that as well as the flue thermometer. Having a warning earlier than I did would have made a big difference here.

 

[begreen]

How large an area in inches actually was glowing and where? Is this a type of double wall pipe where you can see the inner liner through vent holes or was the outer surface glowing red?

 

[DougA]

Do you think it is possible that I damaged the baffle or "upper" parts of the stove with that much heat?

In my opinion, I would say no. The baffle is almost fireproof and the soapstone and cast iron should not be hurt by the high temps. Both would more likely get cracked from a very rapid rise and fall of extreme temps and a crack in the soapstone is very common and not to be alarmed about. Many of the soapstone stoves will have cracked panels after a few years. Mine does. Cracked cast iron would be real trouble but highly unlikely. Always best to look closely when the stove pipe is removed for inspection. If it's minor and not structural, cracks can be patched with stove cement.

I doubt that I would call this a chimney fire in the normal sense of the term. Not my expertise (none of this is though) but I expect that the fire in the stove went crazy and turned the stove into a furnace and the flames went shooting out the only escape route, your stove pipe. A chimney fire to me is when the crud on the sides of the chimney are burning and become an accellerant with flames usually shooting from the top of the chimney. If your chimney was clean as you are saying, then there was nothing (or very little) to catch on fire inside the chimney. This is EXACTLY why everyone recommends to keep the chimney clean. If it was full of creosote, you would have gone from panic to real disaster.

All in all, you likely have very little damage but a thorough inspection will confirm that. At the most, I'd expect to replace some double wall pipe. I went through a very similar scenario last spring and the risk of a heart attack is greater than damaging the stove. The stoves are built like a brick sh^t house.

The good news is that you have learned a lesson and it won't be repeated - right?

 

[xman23]

To me it sounds like a chimney fire. I've never seen one, but I have been told from someone that had one, was the completely red glowing single wall pipe.

 

[nvanhar]

The size of the area that was glowing red was about 2 x 4". And YES, I've learned my lesson for sure. I am also going to situate both a pail of sand and a chimney fire suppressant type extinguisher (in addition to an ABC) near the stove. Very much hope that I never have the occasion to use them again!

 

[begreen]

Where was this? Was it just at the flue collar and on the inside of the double-wall pipe? If so I don't think you had a chimney fire. It's more likely a rapid outgassing of the small wood caused a very robust secondary combustion. This is avoidable by not loading the stove full of kindling.

 

[Smoked]

The size of the area that was glowing red was about 2 x 4". And YES, I've learned my lesson for sure. I am also going to situate both a pail of sand and a chimney fire suppressant type extinguisher (in addition to an ABC) near the stove. Very much hope that I never have the occasion to use them again!

This should make you feel a little better. Last night I had about a 1/3rd load in mine. I did not like the way it looked so I opened the side door to rearrange things a little. Stove top temp was about 400 so it took off pretty good while the door was open. I closed the door and the fire kept raging. I could hear air being pulled into the stove and shuttering a little and I was thinking I had a chimney fire. Here is what went trough my head in a very short period of time. I just cleaned the chimney so not worried about much fuel if it was a chimney fire. Insulated liner in a masonry chimney so it should be clean anyway. Stuffed a stove glove in the OAK inlet forgetting I added a damper in the snout of the tee but no real change. I go outside in the rain with a flashlight and no smoke at all from the stack so by now I am really confused.

Back inside I was thinking the sucking sound was coming from the inlet but listed closer and it was at the side door. New stove new gaskets... I am thinking why is this thing pulling so hard, it is 50 degrees out and raining...The new from the wood I moved around had burned off so things had settled down but still getting the sucking sound at the door. I push on the door to see if it changes pitch and nothing...pull on the door and ......not freakin latched. Duhhhh. I have been burning this model stove for 10 years and can't believe I missed the latch when I turned the handle down. Stuff happens