the power of smoke

[fbelec]

a few days ago i had my last fire. (ran out of wood). i had been burning nightly fires for about two weeks. the last few dry pieces of wood i had went in. prob. about 5 splits and 2 on top that were not as seasoned as they should have been. started the fire and after about one hour i closed the damper for the night and to light off the secondary. that went without a problem. checked the secondary camber fifteen minutes later still firing strong and the right side where the secondary chamber is located was very hot. ok went to bed. i closed the damper at about 1:00 am. about 4:30 am got startled awake by a boom and a second boom about one second later. my wife thought it was the cat. i got up and that was to heavy of a boom to be a ten pound cat. i thought someone was trying to break in to my slider. when i arrived out into the kitchen where the slider and woodstove are located i looked over at the stove and noticed flame shooting out the hole where the cook plate was. i started looking around the kitchen and could not find the aluminum steam dragon and aluminum coffee pot i had on the cook plate for humidity. so i decide to look in the stove and there it was. sitting in the fire. baffled i say to myself, how? anyway i put on the welding gloves remove the steam dragon but to much flame on the other side to pull out the coffee pot. i still didn't see the cook plate til i took a real hard look thru the flames and seen it sitting on the fire. i reach in and pull it out. i didn't see the gasket so i just put it on top in place without the gasket. then ran for the smoke detector and got rid of it before it woke up the twins. then baby sat the stove and left the slider open to vent the house full of smoke. while watching the stove the pipe thermometer was rising to 350 400 450 then i shut down all air but it kept going up. the air leaks around the cook plate were acting as secondary air and had flame at the top of the stove and it the smoke pipe and continued the rise up to 650 almost 700 degrees. i thought that it would get to hot and set off a chimney fire. so i started baffling it back and forth between down draft and updraft to cool it off. that worked. after a hour i opened the primary air back to run it at 350 and fell asleep at the chair.
this all happened because the secondary fire went because the primary was cooling off so the primary air spring opened up to add air and get the fire hot again. how i knew this is because when i got to the stove from bed the primary air was almost wide open. the when it started to get hot enough the secondary lit off and lit all the smoke in the stove and probably the chimney and went boom. the light off of the secondary lift the cook top and fell into the stove.
so before it lights up again next year i'll have to somehow bolt down the cook plate. that little explosion lifted up about the weight of a full gallon of milk.
what a pia. when i rounded the corner and seen the flames i thought that i would have to go back an wipe :bug:

hope that never happens again. since all is well i thought ya might get a hoot out of hearing what happen.

be safe
frank

 

[SmokeyCity]

we coal burners get that a lot
sometimes they are pretty big booms

a few days ago i had my last fire. (ran out of wood). i had been burning nightly fires for about two weeks. the last few dry pieces of wood i had went in. prob. about 5 splits and 2 on top that were not as seasoned as they should have been. started the fire and after about one hour i closed the damper for the night and to light off the secondary. that went without a problem. checked the secondary camber fifteen minutes later still firing strong and the right side where the secondary chamber is located was very hot. ok went to bed. i closed the damper at about 1:00 am. about 4:30 am got startled awake by a boom and a second boom about one second later. my wife thought it was the cat. i got up and that was to heavy of a boom to be a ten pound cat. i thought someone was trying to break in to my slider. when i arrived out into the kitchen where the slider and woodstove are located i looked over at the stove and noticed flame shooting out the hole where the cook plate was. i started looking around the kitchen and could not find the aluminum steam dragon and aluminum coffee pot i had on the cook plate for humidity. so i decide to look in the stove and there it was. sitting in the fire. baffled i say to myself, how? anyway i put on the welding gloves remove the steam dragon but to much flame on the other side to pull out the coffee pot. i still didn't see the cook plate til i took a real hard look thru the flames and seen it sitting on the fire. i reach in and pull it out. i didn't see the gasket so i just put it on top in place without the gasket. then ran for the smoke detector and got rid of it before it woke up the twins. then baby sat the stove and left the slider open to vent the house full of smoke. while watching the stove the pipe thermometer was rising to 350 400 450 then i shut down all air but it kept going up. the air leaks around the cook plate were acting as secondary air and had flame at the top of the stove and it the smoke pipe and continued the rise up to 650 almost 700 degrees. i thought that it would get to hot and set off a chimney fire. so i started baffling it back and forth between down draft and updraft to cool it off. that worked. after a hour i opened the primary air back to run it at 350 and fell asleep at the chair.
this all happened because the secondary fire went because the primary was cooling off so the primary air spring opened up to add air and get the fire hot again. how i knew this is because when i got to the stove from bed the primary air was almost wide open. the when it started to get hot enough the secondary lit off and lit all the smoke in the stove and probably the chimney and went boom. the light off of the secondary lift the cook top and fell into the stove.
so before it lights up again next year i'll have to somehow bolt down the cook plate. that little explosion lifted up about the weight of a full gallon of milk.
what a pia. when i rounded the corner and seen the flames i thought that i would have to go back an wipe :bug:

hope that never happens again. since all is well i thought ya might get a hoot out of hearing what happen.

be safe
frank

 

[grommal]

When my old VC would backpuff, it would lift the cookplate up maybe an inch at most and belch the smoke into the house. That was the pressure relief valve, basically. Otherwise the door glass might have been the pressure relief!

But lifting a steamer with a gallon of water far enough that it all falls into the hole? Wow.

 

[greythorn3]

wwhen they go boom how do you check your chimney joints in the attic to see if they have seperated?

 

[jeff_t]

After that, I'd be shopping.

 

[certified106]

Holy Crap, If I had that happen I think my stove would be on Craigslist the next morning and I would be shopping for a new one! Thank goodness you were there for that fiasco could you imagine if you weren't at home.

 

[jimbom]

Thanks for posting. As a learner burner, this kind of information is very helpful. Reminds me once again that stove installation must be strong enough for worst case. You must have a good installation with the stove pipe and chimney. We are getting ready to install a second stove. Your story will be on my mind.

 

[fbelec]

i could be wrong but i think this will happen more with down draft stoves. if i had it in updraft mode it would have happen because of no secondary air. in a stove that is not downdraft type this happens more often then people realise it just doesn't happen as severe as this. i still trust my stove and if i didn't throw in those two splits that were not as dry as they should have been this wouldn't have happened. also i have the first generation defiant 1 there is not even a hole to mount that plate, but i think there is on later versions. can anyone verify this that has a defiant 2 or 3?
next year my stove will have the plate bolted down.