Chimney Fire

H

hollowdweller

Joined
Sep 22, 2003
Messages
13,182
Wanted to post this to sort of let people know what can happen.

Always be sure to keep your chimney pipe clean.

I have this friend Helen. She moved to WV in the 80's and built her own log cabin. Solar power, gravity fed water. Really cool.

In the early 90's I think it was tragedy struck. Helen fell off her second story porch and was paralyzed from the waist down.

All the people in the area helped make her cabin handicapped accessible, and even built raised bed gardens so she could still do homesteading stuff. She continued to garden, make her own homebrew,and other homestead stuff.

However she was a chef who worked 6 mo in OH and then lived in the woods in WV till it was time to go earn some more cash, and when she broke her back she had to go on disability.

Anyway she and a friend of ours were out in the garden Thursday and her cabin went up with a chimney fire:thumbdn: She was uninsured and lost her new electric wheelchair and all her meds and her 2 kitties:(

Her service dog was outside with her at least:thumbup:

Anyway she was in a wheelchair so it was hard for her to clean the chimney but all y'all who burn wood take heed and see what can happen.

helens3.jpg

helens2.jpg

helens1.jpg


Not a good pic but there is a pic of the cabin standing on this website some of her pals put up to help her. It was a big place and it went up FAST:thumbdn: so be sure to scrub those stove pipes!:thumbup:

http://www.helenfund.blogspot.com/
 
Boy, I sure am sorry to see that.


I grew up on the farm and we always burned wood for heat and not once did we ever have any trouble. I learned a few things about chimney fires I will pass along here.

First like HD said, clean them every year in the spring after winter and I always did it again before winter to make sure nothing made a home in there over the summer.

Next NEVER run those damn heaters that suck the heat out of your chimney and blow it into your home. Most people do not know or understand that the heat going up your chimney needs to go up it. Chimney's are designed to run with around 350 degrees or so of heat running up them, and when you put that heater in the chimney, your chimney runs way to cold.

Your chimney needs to be that warm to keep creasol from building up on the inside of it. If the chimney is cold, creasol will stick to the walls of the chimney the same way moisture sticks or condensates on your mirror after a hot shower. If the mirror was warmer, the moisture would not consendate on it, but stay in the air as humidity. Samething with a chimney. If the chimney is hot, nothing will condensate on the walls, or very little will and it goes right up and out of the chimney. Same as a window defroster in your car. Hot air blowing on the window, clears away any moisture, but if you turn the heat off and blow cold air, your windows fog right up.

Now if you are running a cold chimney all winter, and all of a sudden you have a flame shooting up the flue, like we all have had, it can start that creasol on fire and then you have a chimney fire and before you know it your chimney is way past the 350 degree mark and starts your home on fire.


We have burned every kind of wood, both green and dry, and have NEVER had any trouble. In fact when I cleaned the chimney every year, there was less than a 5 gallon pail of crap to be taken out at the bottom for a 13 room farm house, and we burned about 10-12 cords a year. Even if the chimney caught on fire, and I am sure it has, the fire is so short lived, that it never gets hot enough to start a house fire as it runs out of fuel or creasol before that happens.
 
:thumbup: Words of wisdom Bunker.

You gotta run it hot to keep it clean. We used a woodstove and cookstove and never had a problem in years. Clean it and run it hot.
 
HD,

Sorry to hear about that... I heat primarily with wood and I've seen a fair number of fires... I try to clean my chimney at least once a month, but I still get the occasional pipe fire... Smoke to her.
 
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