Chimney fire

[Dean Lofthouse]

Had a chimney fire last night at midnight, well actually it must of started early evening because I thought the stove was performing unusually well.

 

When I went to shut the stove down to go to bed there was the tell tale jet engine roar and I knew instantly what the problem was. My daughter came down and told me there was a 3ft flame roaring out the chimney pot.

 

The massive advantage of a good stove is all you need to do is shut the air flow off and starve the fire of oxygen. Our lass had phone in hand ready to ring the fire brigade, I told her to bog off, there,s no chance of them squirting water down my chimney.

 

All I did was control the burn so the tar smouldered and cleared rather than burnt. I had two powder and CO2 fire extinguishers on standby and a screwdriver ready to remove the flue inspection plate. If the fire had got to a point where I couldn't control it I'd have just removed the plate and sent 6kg of powder up the chimney with the up draft.

 

Nice clean chimney now and no crumbled brick, job done

[kev7937]

Ouch glad you got it sorted safely, may I be as bold to ask when you last had it swept and (not in a cheeky way) how dry are your logs ?

[nepia]

Reckon you took 'secondary burn' in that flue cube thingy to new heights!

[Dean Lofthouse]

My logs are always around 20% and I have never had the chimney swept, I don't believe in someone sticking brush up a 6" flue straight into a 3ft wide chimney and getting a small bucket of dust and soot.

 

The brushes don't remove hard baked on tar and I burn my stove non stop for 6 months at a time so inevitably tar will build up and I knew it was doing so. I planned to line it this year and insulate the flue pipe.

 

It was only a matter of time before the fire occurred and luckily I have a well sealed stove that I knew I would be able to control it with when it did occur and had extinguishers as back up.

 

I am a bit anal for planning for emergencies, even when we had an open fire I had a plate made that was an exact sealed fit as a chimney fire putter outer plate

[mendiplogs]

My logs are always around 20% and I have never had the chimney swept, I don't believe in someone sticking brush up a 6" flue straight into a 3ft wide chimney and getting a small bucket of dust and soot.

 

The brushes don't remove hard baked on tar and I burn my stove non stop for 6 months at a time so inevitably tar will build up and I knew it was doing so. I planned to line it this year and insulate the flue pipe.

 

It was only a matter of time before the fire occurred and luckily I have a well sealed stove that I knew I would be able to control it with when it did occur and had extinguishers as back up.

 

I am a bit anal for planning for emergencies, even when we had an open fire I had a plate made that was an exact sealed fit as a chimney fire putter outer plate

 

HI DEAN it nice to see your all right mate you will be ok with a flue pipe :thumbup1:jon

[Dean Lofthouse]

Reckon you took 'secondary burn' in that flue cube thingy to new heights!

 

Just loaded the fire box up again, going to let the chimney warm up then open the controls right up and see of we can have a final afterburn just to get it spotless

[Joy Yeomans]

good one ! must admit for the last few years used a local chimney sweep to sweep every six months. this last october roh was busy as usual so again i said ill ring mr. chimney sweep he said no ill do it. and to both our amazement such alot of soot came out as the sweep was literraly donbe in ten minutes roh took his time really sweeping each pole before adding the next ...our conclusion if you want a job doing properly do it yourself ...all in all the chimney took a good thirty minutes of sweeping abuse and the aga was taken apart n cleaned ... jobdone

 

joy

 

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[mendiplogs]

good one ! must admit for the last few years used a local chimney sweep to sweep every six months. this last october roh was busy as usual so again i said ill ring mr. chimney sweep he said no ill do it. and to both our amazement such alot of soot came out as the sweep was literraly donbe in ten minutes roh took his time really sweeping each pole before adding the next ...our conclusion if you want a job doing properly do it yourself ...all in all the chimney took a good thirty minutes of sweeping abuse and the aga was taken apart n cleaned ... jobdone

 

joy

 

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Hi joy what the cost of a chimney sweep mate £50)60 per pot thanks jon

[easy-lift guy]

Dean, was curious what your ratio of soft to hard wood burning is?. I have recommended for my customers a 3 to 1 ratio of hard to soft wood. Seems to keep the pitch build up to a minimum. Glad to hear your experience was short lived.

easy-lift guy

[Joy Yeomans]

he was charging 35 to be honest he was in the house less than 10 min only the time it took to drink a coffee. and each pole was connected n pushed straight up one after another. after roh did it he was out of breath he really did give it some wellie

 

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