What is the stupidest thing you have burned in your boiler?

[tom in maine]

So, I am working on a new boiler. (I will show it soon.)
In the process of messing around a glass perfume bottle landed in the boiler. It was mixed in with some paper.
As soon as I let it go into the fire, I knew it was a mistake.

Well after the explosion (no injuries and yes, it was fun!)
I was cleaning out the ash and found the melted glass (3,000F!) and also a melted copper tube (only 2,000F) that I thought would
help introduce some secondary air.

EPA aside, has anyone found something in the ash that has totally amazed you?

 

[kabbott]

What is the stupidest thing you have burned in your boiler?

My fingers... :shut:

Never really found anything that amazed me but I will admit to melting a beer bottle until pliable and forming into strange shapes. Yes I am a firebug for sure.

 

[pdboilermaker]

I have burned ATV tires in mine on some of those awful cold and windy nights, they burn fine by the way and leave behind only a small bit of metal (the bead locks)

 

[JSJAC]

Found a dead red squiral in my wood pile last winter and it went in the boiler

 

[mikeyny]

a smoke detector. It was chirpping from low battery. It was an old one that we replaced and it was lost in the cellar in a pile of junk. It drove me crazy trying to find it for 2 days. FINALLY I found the @#$%& thing and out of desperation I threw it in the wood boiler, It made the coolest sound as it screamed and whinned and bit the dust.

 

[heppm01]

Not in the boiler and not intentionally, but:

I had a few bags of paper and a bunch of cardboard boxes my wife wanted burned. I dragged it all out to the fire pit and got a rip roaring fire going with he cardboard. Started tossing the bags of paper in and a few minutes later there was a huge explosion - scared the holy bejeesus out of me. Turns out my wife "forgot" that she had put an empty can of hairspray in with one of the bags of paper.

 

[Blennophobic]

Turns out my wife "forgot" that she had put an empty can of hairspray in with one of the bags of paper.

Sound like a homicide attempt to anyone else?

LOL to the squirrel... hope it was a red squirrel because I hate them with a passion.

B.

 

[pybyr]

I've put various deceased rodents into my gasifier--

This suddenly triggers an idea, for all of us Boiler Room & instrumentation junkies-- "Oh when I die, please gasify me"-- someone could create a mobile gasifying crematorium and measure the stack temp, BTU yield, etc., that we each yield when we cross over. Guess it'd be a niche market

 

[duane9835]

A friend of mine burns all of our hunting camps deer carcasses in his OWB after we get them all cleaned up. He says that's good BTU's

 

[flyingcow]

I've put various deceased rodents into my gasifier--

This suddenly triggers an idea, for all of us Boiler Room & instrumentation junkies-- "Oh when I die, please gasify me"-- someone could create a mobile gasifying crematorium and measure the stack temp, BTU yield, etc., that we each yield when we cross over. Guess it'd be a niche market

Interesting fellow you are. And a lawyer to boot? Might explain it. Be smart to stay on your good side.

 

[DaveBP]

This suddenly triggers an idea, for all of us Boiler Room & instrumentation junkies—“Oh when I die, please gasify me”—someone could create a mobile gasifying crematorium and measure the stack temp, BTU yield, etc., that we each yield when we cross over. Guess it’d be a niche market

Those with the driest sense of humor might have an unfair advantage in the clean burn category.

 

[leaddog]

A friend of mine burns all of our hunting camps deer carcasses in his OWB after we get them all cleaned up. He says that's good BTU's

Not many btu's there unless you dry them up. Lots of water to get rid of. A good hot fire will put them to ash and the smell isn't to bad IF you have a HOT fire. Other wise the smell is like burnt hair. That is probably a better way to get rid of the carcases than throwing them out as it will stop the spead of any disease. With TB and CWD we don't need that to spead.
leaddog

 

[sandman59]

My friend who has a outdoor boiler, disposed of fresh deer entrails in his boiler just this morning. He didn't think the smell was too bad.

 

[ManiacPD]

Nothing exotic, but I once filled mine with dimensional lumber scraps that I thought were wet but turned out were actually quite dry.

Did you know that galvanized stove pipe will give off green smoke at close to 1,000F?

I always keep a bucket of dry sand handy just in case.

 

[peakbagger]

Please avoid burning PVC, the state of NH did a study a few years ago and a couple of people with burn barrels burning their trash for a year, generated more dioxin than all the wood fired power plants in the state.

 

[kabbott]

Please avoid burning PVC, the state of NH did a study a few years ago and a couple of people with burn barrels burning their trash for a year, generated more dioxin than all the wood fired power plants in the state.

I would say there are a few things in this thread that would be better sent to the landfill... No wonder OWB's get a bad rap.

 

[flyingcow]

Oh lighten up, we've had the climate getting colder the last few years, they're just trying to help Al Gore with his drivel about "The planets got a fever".

 

[Blennophobic]

+1 to the landfill.

 

[shoeboxlen]

does the carcass of the still wheeping tree hugger count????? just kidding they run too fast

 

[maplewood]

My experience wasn't with my boiler, but in an old Franklin stove, when I was about 14. We delivered 600 newspapers from our Bronco, and after
each delivery run I cleaned out the scrap paper and plastic bundle ties that the newspapers were wrapped in. I'd usually jam the paper and plastic
into a grocery bag, and burn it in the Franklin.

We used a spray paint can to mark some paper delivery tubes, and in my paper-gathering one morning, I accidentally grabbed that can along with
the rest of the garbage. Into the stove it all went. About 10 minutes later, the doors of the stove blew open with a bang, and I ran into the basement
workshop / storage room where the stove was, to see what happened. The spray paint can was bouncing around the room like a UFO pinball, spinning
from the jet of flames and paint coming out of a pinhole near the bottom edge of the can. It only lasted for about 15 seconds, but everything in the
room had tiny red dots all over it when the dust settled. Good thing it was our workshop, storage and laundry room, and not our living room!

Scared me pretty bad at the time. Thought Dad was going to be upset, but he took it well. "Be more careful", was about all he said.
Whew.

 

[Stlshrk]

Now, I think that is more the spirit of this thread!

 

[flyingcow]

My experience wasn't with my boiler, but in an old Franklin stove, when I was about 14. We delivered 600 newspapers from our Bronco, and after
each delivery run I cleaned out the scrap paper and plastic bundle ties that the newspapers were wrapped in. I'd usually jam the paper and plastic
into a grocery bag, and burn it in the Franklin.

We used a spray paint can to mark some paper delivery tubes, and in my paper-gathering one morning, I accidentally grabbed that can along with
the rest of the garbage. Into the stove it all went. About 10 minutes later, the doors of the stove blew open with a bang, and I ran into the basement
workshop / storage room where the stove was, to see what happened. The spray paint can was bouncing around the room like a UFO pinball, spinning
from the jet of flames and paint coming out of a pinhole near the bottom edge of the can. It only lasted for about 15 seconds, but everything in the
room had tiny red dots all over it when the dust settled. Good thing it was our workshop, storage and laundry room, and not our living room!

Scared me pretty bad at the time. Thought Dad was going to be upset, but he took it well. "Be more careful", was about all he said.
Whew.

Your Dad had been there done it, he was speaking from experience, I'm guessing. But that was a GOOD story. Something that was spoke of at many a family gatherings!

 

[sdrobertson]

Scared me pretty bad at the time. Thought Dad was going to be upset, but he took it well. "Be more careful", was about all he said.
Whew.

Sometimes a father really doesn't have to yell...just the look on a face can tell if the young one learned something and thankfully nobody got hurt.

 

[heaterman]

Back in the day.............I had a Russell wood burning furnace in the garage and ducted into the house. Also back in the day..........I had a reloading setup in the garage. I threw a can of gunpowder away that contained a few ounces of powder I suspected had become damp and somehow it got buried in a box of newspapers I used for kindling. Luckily it was smokeless powder which burns, albeit very fast, rather than black powder which outright explodes.

Thankfully, the Russell is a very heavy built unit and I had the door closed when the powder lit. I was just walking back into the house when suddenly the furnace sounded like a 747 was taking off inside it for a few seconds. Smoke poured from the seams in the stovepipe which again, luckily was screwed together at all joints and I swear to this day the 700 pound beast danced on the floor for a second. Let's just say I didn't have to worry about creosote in the heat exchanger or the chimney for a week or two. The better half came running out to ask if everything was OK. Of course I told her everything was fine .........while I tried to cover the wet spot in the front of my pants. :O Men should never admit they are either wrong or lost.

 

[Tony H]

Well with the boiler about the only thing has been some old bank records and such but a few years ago we stayed at a lake cottage and the owner used to seperate and burn the paper and take the rest to the dump where they charged by the load.
He was getting up there in years and maybe couldn't see so good I was standing there talking to him about 20' from the burn barrel when all of a sudden there was a huge explosion then another one a few seconds later turned out someone left a can of solvent or brake fluid and the first can went right thru the side of the burn barrel and the second one went straight up into the pine trees even started a little fire we had to put out with the hose.
I asked him if that ever happened before and he said a couple times a year !

Of course this was the place we stayed over the 4th of July and 5 of the 6 cabins were friends of ours we had a bunch of launching tubes along the shore and would shoot fireworks for hours and had a couple mishaps where 2rockets went off on a pier and the first one knocked the other on its side and it shot right into the side of one buddies brand new boat and a few years before a rocket went the wrong way back over the cabin and landed on top of a van same fellow that owned the boat.
lucky there was no damage and just for the record the several times we landed stuff close to boats traveling by we were not aiming for the we just were at the entrance to a channel and could not see approaching boats.