So lately we've had some nice weather (finally) and it's been the first three or four days in a row where we haven't had a fire. I even went so far yesterday as to clean out the firebox in the assumption we'd be shut down until fall. Well, I had spent some time outside as the sunset and got a bit of a chill so decided to bring the old boy (the less than one year old Osburn 2000) out of retirement for one more fire.
One thing I think I should mention is that all day today, anytime I would sit in the living room with the stove I would get a very faint whiff of wet wood. Like, as if it had rained on the ashes of an old camp fire. I took my wood-carrying satchel out to the garage because it was covered in soot and I figured that might be the culprit, but I still could smell it and just assumed it could be the fireplace. My other thought was that we had rain last night and I thought that perhaps a little bit of water got down the chimney and all I was smelling was damp ash or something of the like (of course, we had no issue with this all winter, including through heavy snowfalls etc).
Anyway, I lit a fire like I have probably 150 times already and knew something was up immediately as smoke from the lit newspaper didn't immediately begin to draw upwards...in fact, it started to come back into the living room. I shut the door up right away (I usually keep it open a crack for 10 minutes while the fire starts to roar before closing it up) and turned the vent to closed....but smoke still kept billowing through the cleanout at the bottom and through the minimally open front vent. I went to get my fire extinguisher just in case, and basically sat there handcuffed trying to figure out whether to risk opening the box to pull the wood out or else cross my fingers that WHATEVER is plugging up the chimney becomes unplugged. Eventually, enough flame developed and I started to see smoke start tracking up to the roof of the stove and the billowing smoke stopped almost immediately.
We left the doors open for 10-15 minutes and no sooner than it filled, the house was clear of smoke again, and my stove burned happily along as if nothing had happened.
So...any idea what happened? I've never had drawing issues before with this stove, but then again I've never lit a fire in plus temperatures yet. I'm going to let this fire die out and then I'll get the chimney sweep out right away to check the chimney and see what may have happened. I'm wondering if maybe birds took the opportunity to start building a nest on my chimney? We did notice an obscene amount of blue jays, crows etc with grass and twigs in their beaks around our place the last few days...
One thing I think I should mention is that all day today, anytime I would sit in the living room with the stove I would get a very faint whiff of wet wood. Like, as if it had rained on the ashes of an old camp fire. I took my wood-carrying satchel out to the garage because it was covered in soot and I figured that might be the culprit, but I still could smell it and just assumed it could be the fireplace. My other thought was that we had rain last night and I thought that perhaps a little bit of water got down the chimney and all I was smelling was damp ash or something of the like (of course, we had no issue with this all winter, including through heavy snowfalls etc).
Anyway, I lit a fire like I have probably 150 times already and knew something was up immediately as smoke from the lit newspaper didn't immediately begin to draw upwards...in fact, it started to come back into the living room. I shut the door up right away (I usually keep it open a crack for 10 minutes while the fire starts to roar before closing it up) and turned the vent to closed....but smoke still kept billowing through the cleanout at the bottom and through the minimally open front vent. I went to get my fire extinguisher just in case, and basically sat there handcuffed trying to figure out whether to risk opening the box to pull the wood out or else cross my fingers that WHATEVER is plugging up the chimney becomes unplugged. Eventually, enough flame developed and I started to see smoke start tracking up to the roof of the stove and the billowing smoke stopped almost immediately.
We left the doors open for 10-15 minutes and no sooner than it filled, the house was clear of smoke again, and my stove burned happily along as if nothing had happened.
So...any idea what happened? I've never had drawing issues before with this stove, but then again I've never lit a fire in plus temperatures yet. I'm going to let this fire die out and then I'll get the chimney sweep out right away to check the chimney and see what may have happened. I'm wondering if maybe birds took the opportunity to start building a nest on my chimney? We did notice an obscene amount of blue jays, crows etc with grass and twigs in their beaks around our place the last few days...
