Over Firing

[stockdoct]

I haven't overfired in my new Lopi Freedom --- my wood is all scrounged, and I really don't think I COULD achieve a temperature of over 600 degrees!

But if someday something bad happens, what do I do? If I come back to my insert and see it glowing red, and the temp gauge at 950+ ......... what is the best way to deal with this?

Obviously I would choke down the air inlet, but has anyone had to do something more? Open the glass door and pour water on the fire? Drizzle water on the top of the stove to evaporate heat? Add a huge cold log to take heat out of the fireplace?

What would be the best course if choking off the air inlet didn't work?


PS In medicine, every now and then we get and old person with hyperthermia they die with temps of 106-107---- usually on the hottest day of the year and she/he doesn't have air conditioning and has a disability where he can't get to water easily to drink. We use cooling blankets, we infuse cold IV fluids, sometimes we make a hole in the abdomen and pour in cold saline and suck it out warm ..... but we've found the most effective way to cool off a hot person is quite low-tech...... strip them naked, squirt cool water them on from a kitchen squirt bottle, with a fan blowing on them. Simple. Saves lives.

 

[begreen]

Best thing to do is to shut the air control down and ride it out. You could locate your outdoor air intake and cover it or cram some aluminum foil in there for further restriction.

 

[Cearbhaill]

Best thing to do is to shut the air control down and ride it out. You could locate your outdoor air intake and cover it or cram some aluminum foil in there for further restriction.

At what point would you call 911 and evacuate?
How about the "toss 5 lbs of baking soda in" remedy?
I think I read that somewhere here??

 

[Backwoods Savage]

If I come back to my insert and see it glowing red, and the temp gauge at 950+ ......... what is the best way to deal with this?

Obviously I would choke down the air inlet, but has anyone had to do something more? Open the glass door and pour water on the fire? Drizzle water on the top of the stove to evaporate heat? Add a huge cold log to take heat out of the fireplace?

stockdoct, cooling a body would be much, much different than cooling a hot stove! But we are very thankful for people like you who can and do save lives. Now let's hope we can save your stove and home!

Pouring water on the stove or in the stove would perhaps be one of the worst things you could do. You would have instant steam and as you know, steam can do dreadful things to a body. In addition to that, if the stove is already overfiring, once you open the door, that fire gets more oxygen. What does oxygen do to a fire? Or what does a fire do to oxygen?

I was privy to an overfiring stove just one time in my life. A frightful thing to say the least. Yet, the best thing one can do once you choke off all the air to the stove, is just stand by and be ready in case anything does catch fire. Best have a fire extinguisher handy too. Ride it out and then don't fire up that stove again until everything has been checked and double checked. Everything from all parts of the stove to the entire chimney.

After all this, then one must examine and try to determine exactly what caused the overfiring. This is the educational part.

Let's hope and pray all this never happens.

 

[Molson]

my installed suggested a bucket of beach sand near the stove for that reason. In case it takes off too much, and/or a dreaded chimney fire, he suggest tossing a bucket of sand to smother the fire.