Rain cap coated in freezing rain or snowed over?

[Nick Mystic]

I was just now lying on my living room floor looking at my fire in the Jotul and I started hearing some sleet hitting the skylight up above in the cathedral ceiling. I live in Western NC where we are under a freezing rain warning tonight through tomorrow noon. This got me wondering if any members have ever had trouble lighting their stove and then discovered your rain cap had gotten coated in ice, or perhaps drifted over with snow? I imagine if this happened and you didn't know and tried to light a fire you'd have smoke coming out the door pretty quick. Once you shut the door the fire in the stove would likely smolder for a time until it burned out. I doubt you could build enough of a fire to generate sufficient heat to melt the snow/ice clear.

 

[lopiliberty]

Even with a cold stove, its still sucking air up the flue (well most of the time) and that air is room temperature so I would think it would be harder for the cap to freeze over with ice but I guess it possible

 

[Oregon aloha]

If it's that cold and wet why would you not have had a fire long enough for that to happen? If the chimney coated with ice air would still flow though as the freezing rain would not coat it enough to seal it totally shut and if the snow was that deep, drifted over your chimney, then I would think you would have many more issues to deal with before you got to a fire.

 

[Charles1981]

If I had 4 feet of snow on my roof...I'd probably be homeless as my roof would be at risk of collapsing and that is how much snow it would take to cover over my chimney cap. As far as ice coating the cap well...i guess anything is possible.

 

[UncleJoe]

Yeah, even back in '07? when we had 46" from 2 storms in 1 week, we didn't have any issues with a blocked chimney.

 

[Highbeam]

It is certainly possible and my BK manual even tells you what to do when you fear that your cap has become obstructed with ice. In the case of the BK, the flue temps are so low that the moisture from combustion can condense and freeze on the cap from the inside. I've had huge icicles hanging from my cap when burning my old non-cat due to freezing rain. There are parts of the cap assembly that do not get hot.

As far as snow accumulating, that is unlikely and after four feet of snow you'll need to figure out a way to melt it away from the cap. I would shove an electric heater in the firebox.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I've never heard of anyone having this problem. In most cases, the air is cold enough that folks would already have a fire in the stove. That would negate that problem immediately.

 

[Nick Mystic]

I can think of several scenarios that lend themselves to ice forming on a rain cap. Yes, you would think in most situations that someone who routinely heats with a stove or insert would have a fire going when a raging ice storm is about to hit. However, it's not that unusual to hear forum members talk about letting their stoves burn out during the daytime when they head off to work and then get a fire going when they come home at night. I can see someone making their way home after difficult drive through a snow storm with nothing more on their mind than getting their stove fired up as soon as they walk through the door. It's likely already dark outside in mid-winter so they don't get to look at the chimney, even if it was on their radar, which it probably wouldn't be. The stove is loaded, the kindling is lit and surprise: smoke is pouring into the living room!

 

[BCC_Burner]

My chimney is about 18 feet tall from the ground to the top of the cap, and while this will be my first winter living in this particular house, a snowy winter could result in me having to shovel out the top of my stack. The chimney is on the side of the house that is most prone to collecting wind-driven snow and one side of the roof sheds along either side of it, so that is drift/pile depth, not overall snow cover. If the banks get too far above my first floor windows I'll just cut steps in the snow up to the stack. That would certainly make a mid to late winter cleaning easy.

 

[dmmoss51]

That's why they have doors on the second floor of the dorms at Michigan Tech so they can get out in the winter