# Chimney cap fire!



## Lumber-Jack (Feb 24, 2013)

Well, not exactly, but sort of. In any case I thought I'd post this for curiosity sake.

We were going to be out of town Saturday and stay away from home for one night, so we were staying up late Friday getting things ready. Finally got to bed just after midnight, literally just climbed into bed when I heard a loud banging on the door. Who the heck comes calling at the wee hours of the morning???
Turns out it's the neighbor lady wrapped in her bathrobe (night robe?). She is a little excited and saying their are sparks coming out of my chimney. So I follow her outside and sure enough there is a glowing ember on the chimney cap. She informs me it doesn't look bad now, but a little while ago she saw a trails of "sparks" flying away from the chimney. Now I had just cleaned the chimney not long ago, and I was pretty certain there was no chimney fire, so I didn't get too excited, but I did thank her very much for alerting me and assured her I would deal with it.
I watched it for a few minutes hoping it would burn itself out, but it was particularly windy that night, and every time the wind picked up it would fan embers on the cap and some sparks would fly off in the wind. Again, I wasn't particularly worried about it, there was a snow cover over the ground everywhere, and I have a metal roof, but for the sake of satisfying the neighbor lady, and making sure that nobody else in the neighborhood might see it and call the fire department, I decide I'd better get up on the roof in the middle of the night and properly inspect and deal with it.
The metal roof is pretty steep, and the chimney would normally be hard to access but fortunately I have a system for getting up there to clean it, otherwise I'd have been hooped. Still, for some reason the idea of getting dressed and climbing up on the roof just after midnight on a particularly windy night, just wasn't something that appealed to me. But I did it anyway, and on the way up I grabbed a wire brush. When I got there I saw, as expected, that there was just a small amount of creosote around the cap that was "burning". No actual flames, just a burning ember, like the end of a cigarette. I dusted the ember off and that was it. problem solved.
However, after climbing all the way up there I decided I'd better take the cap off and peak down the chimney. After all, I was already up there. The cap was hardly even warm, so it wasn't a problem to remove, although the only light I was working by was the moonlight and a distant street light, so I was extra careful with the wing nuts. Once I got the cap off I couldn't see very far down the chimney, but from what I could see there was just a light bit of creosote around the very top rim of the chimney. It was too dark to see anything down any further, so I stuck my arm down there to see what I could feel (obviously no chimney fire was going on). I couldn't feel anything significant. I thought about getting a flashlight, but I didn't want to climb down and go back up again. By this time my wife was outside on the ground, so I told her to go open the draft on the stove and get the fire going better. She did, and within a minute there was enough flames down below to illuminate up the 20 ft chimney and I could see pretty good.... Nothin. The only detectable build up was right near the top, and it was less than 1/4 thick.
So it appears a stray ember from the stove had floated 20 ft up the chimney and momentarily stuck to a bit of creosote on the chimney cap, that was constantly being fanned by the wind, ignited and was sufficient enough to produce a light show significant enough to motivate the neighbor lady to come banging on our door after midnight.
Don't know if there is any moral to the story, but I though it was worth telling since it was something that doesn't happen all the time.
BTW. We left Saturday as planned, lit a nice fire before we left, and came home today (Sunday). I immediately went up on the roof again and ran the chimney brush down the chimney, replaced the chimney cap ( because I didn't bother to put it back on in the middle of the night), took my planks down and put everything away. I probably won't go up there again till spring.
Next chance I get I'll thank the neighbor lady and explain what was going on, and that there was no real danger, but that it is certainly better to be safe than sorry. 

Here's an old video of the chimney (during the day).


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## weatherguy (Feb 24, 2013)

No pics of the neighbor in her robe?


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## pen (Feb 24, 2013)

I just don't see how an active coal could be brought up the chimney to cause this unless the stove was filled with some light fuel like cardboard.

To me, this was a chimney fire, albeit a small one by the sounds. 

If the chimney was cleaned not so long ago, I think I'd be contemplating what the weak link is here that put you into the circumstance.

Sorry to hear the trouble, but very glad to hear no injuries from the fire and/or the trip up on the roof in the night!

pen


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 24, 2013)

weatherguy said:


> No pics of the neighbor in her robe?


LOL   I can get you some pictures if you want, but you'll be dis-a-ppoint-ed. 

Replace the coffee cup below with a cigarette and the caricature below pretty much nails it.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 24, 2013)

pen said:


> I just don't see how an active coal could be brought up the chimney to cause this unless the stove was filled with some light fuel like cardboard.
> 
> To me, this was a chimney fire, albeit a small one by the sounds.
> 
> ...


Don't know if there is anything I could (would) change Pen. We do use paper and sometimes cardboard to light the fire, but I've seen sparks (embers) fly out my chimney long after any "light stuff" has completely disintegrated, so that doesn't seem like that would be the cause, and this particular fire had been burning for hours, but had just recently been re-stoked and loaded with fresh wood for a night time burn. It's often during these re-loads that you can see embers flying out the top of the chimney. The amount of creosote on the cap could not be considered significant, except that it was windy all night the night before too, and I have noticed that when it is windy the creosote on the cap tends to get a little more liquidy. Perhaps the liquidy stuff ignites easier than the dry stuff.
About the only thing I could do would be to remove the chimney cap altogether. I'm not about to do that. I will keep a better eye on it more when it gets windy. Not so much that I'm worried about it starting a fire somewhere, but I don't want the neighbors to get excited.


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## pen (Feb 24, 2013)

What stove are you running?  I can't recall.

pen


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## volvo9 (Feb 24, 2013)

That's you in that video!! I watched that quite a while ago while messing around on youtube, haven't posted here yet, but now is good as any!

Interesting story though, glad it ended without issue.

A few years ago before I had an insert in my fireplace, I was having a few nice large fires a week (irritated at the inneficiency the whole time). When I was inspecting the cold chimney one day I decided to take my lighter to the fluffy creosote buildup and see how flammable it really was. I never got much out of it, but could get some sparks to come to life and move around like worms for a bit before going out. Seems like something similar happened in your cap, and the wind really got it going and looking worse than it was.


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## ohlongarm (Feb 24, 2013)

I had the exact scenario about a month ago the cap was literally on fire for a short time.Next day I went on the roof and looked down the chimney with a 1 million candlepower spotlight,clean as a whistle,the cap was encrusted with creosote scraped it off with a wire brush and good to go,don't ask me what happened but no big deal.


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## charly (Feb 24, 2013)

That faster then the Soot Eater Nice set up!


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 24, 2013)

pen said:


> What stove are you running? I can't recall.
> 
> pen


Pen I have a Regency F2400 in the house.
I should mention that 99% of the time I'm burning lodgepole pine, and the bark on that stuff tends to snap crackle and pop for a while til it burns off. It's probably worse for sending up sparks than cardboard.
While on the subject of sparks coming out chimneys, I have an old Lopi smoke dragon in the shop that has a much shorter chimney, when that thing gets a fresh load of wood it often has a much greater display of sparks than the house stove, due to it's shorter chimney.



volvo9 said:


> That's you in that video!! I watched that quite a while ago while messing around on youtube, haven't posted here yet, but now is good as any!
> 
> Interesting story though, glad it ended without issue.
> 
> A few years ago before I had an insert in my fireplace, I was having a few nice large fires a week (irritated at the inneficiency the whole time). When I was inspecting the cold chimney one day I decided to take my lighter to the fluffy creosote buildup and see how flammable it really was. I never got much out of it, but could get some sparks to come to life and move around like worms for a bit before going out. Seems like something similar happened in your cap, and the wind really got it going and looking worse than it was.


Welcome to the forum Volvo.
Yeah the wind was the big factor here. Hard to say for sure, but my guess is the cap never even would have been able to ignite without it. It definitely went from a benign ember when I first saw it, to a disconcerting little comet tail when ever a strong gust came through and fanned it with oxygen.


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## simple.serf (Feb 24, 2013)

I had something similar happen earlier this week. I let the stack temp get too hot and had the cap do some strange things. I got up 2 hrs early on a workday and checked/cleaned the chimney and found that everything looked good, but it did startle me a bit!


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## savageactor7 (Feb 25, 2013)

Good for the neighbor in giving you a heads up. Also most excellent and efficient employ of roof jacks to safely clean the chimney.

 I always blame the cap.


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## ArsenalDon (Feb 25, 2013)

We responded (FD Volunteer) to a very similar fire a few weeks ago. Flue was not gunked up but the cap was, when we arrived it looked exactly as you describe yours....solution was the same, brush it clean and good to go....cept we told her to get a sweep out....no reason for us to take on the liability of saying it was good to go.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 25, 2013)

Don Williams said:


> We responded (FD Volunteer) to a very similar fire a few weeks ago. Flue was not gunked up but the cap was, when we arrived it looked exactly as you describe yours....solution was the same, brush it clean and good to go....cept we told her to get a sweep out....no reason for us to take on the liability of saying it was good to go.


Out of curiosity Don, who called the fire department in that case? The woman herself, or one of her neighbors?

With all the people piping up here it sounds like this may be a fairly common occurrence.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 25, 2013)

savageactor7 said:


> Good for the neighbor in giving you a heads up. Also most excellent and efficient employ of roof jacks to safely clean the chimney.
> I always blame the cap.


Thanks Savageactor, the old adage is true, "necessity is the mother of all invention", and it was necessary for me to be able to inspect the top of my chimney once in a while, so making those jacks and permanently attaching them to the roof, seemed like the best (only?) way.


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## pen (Feb 25, 2013)

My cap hardly ever has anything on it. It's definitely not shiny steel anymore, but never any accumulation to speak of. It's been 2 months since I cleaned, and if I scraped every last bit out of it I might have 2 tablespoons worth. Are other folks getting much more on a regular basis?  For the folks who have had this happen, how dirty is that cap? 

So if some folks are getting more buildup and that is causing the issue, is it the cap itself causing the build-up, something about the chimney setup that makes it more likely to ignite even a small amount in the cap, something about the fuel, about loading cycles, air adjustments, temps run, etc, etc ?

I just don't believe looking at this situation as being normal is the appropriate angle to take.

I know if I had it happen, I'd be very unhappy.

pen


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## tfdchief (Feb 25, 2013)

pen said:


> My cap hardly ever has anything on it. It's definitely not shiny steel anymore, but never any accumulation to speak of. It's been 2 months since I cleaned, and if I scraped every last bit out of it I might have 2 tablespoons worth. Are other folks getting much more on a regular basis? For the folks who have had this happen, how dirty is that cap?
> 
> So if some folks are getting more buildup and that is causing the issue, is it the cap itself causing the build-up, something about the chimney setup that makes it more likely to ignite even a small amount in the cap, something about the fuel, about loading cycles, air adjustments, temps run, etc, etc ?
> 
> ...


Of course everyone knows I have both an old pre-EPA and an EPA stove.  Never have anything on the EPA cap except light black soot.  A little more on the old stove cap.  I used to get a lot of build up on the old cap until I direct connected the stove  to a stainless steel liner.  Before that, I just couldn't keep enough heat in the flue to keep the cap clean.


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## ArsenalDon (Feb 25, 2013)

Lumber-Jack said:


> Out of curiosity Don, who called the fire department in that case? The woman herself, or one of her neighbors?
> 
> With all the people piping up here it sounds like this may be a fairly common occurrence.


She did....went outside to get some wood and noticed sparks


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## ArsenalDon (Feb 25, 2013)

tfdchief said:


> Of course everyone knows I have both an old pre-EPA and an EPA stove. Never have anything on the EPA cap except light black soot. A little more on the old stove cap. I used to get a lot of build up on the old cap until I direct connected the stove to a stainless steel liner. Before that, I just couldn't keep enough heat in the flue to keep the cap clean.


Great example.  To add...I have EPA stove, my neighbor has pre EPA. We cut our wood together and both burn 24/7.  He drips creosote, I just get a fluffy ash.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 25, 2013)

pen said:


> My cap hardly ever has anything on it. It's definitely not shiny steel anymore, but never any accumulation to speak of. It's been 2 months since I cleaned, and if I scraped every last bit out of it I might have 2 tablespoons worth. Are other folks getting much more on a regular basis? For the folks who have had this happen, how dirty is that cap?
> 
> So if some folks are getting more buildup and that is causing the issue, is it the cap itself causing the build-up, something about the chimney setup that makes it more likely to ignite even a small amount in the cap, something about the fuel, about loading cycles, air adjustments, temps run, etc, etc ?
> 
> ...


Pen I like your thinking, I'd like a solution if there is one, one other than just removing the cap altogether.



tfdchief said:


> Of course everyone knows I have both an old pre-EPA and an EPA stove. Never have anything on the EPA cap except light black soot. A little more on the old stove cap. I used to get a lot of build up on the old cap until I direct connected the stove to a stainless steel liner. Before that, I just couldn't keep enough heat in the flue to keep the cap clean.


Steve my experience is quite the opposite. I have the exact same cap on a chimney in my shop, but it's connected to an old Lopi smoke dragon, and I haven't had the problem of creosote build up on that cap. Mind you, the cap may be the same, but the chimney is a lot shorter, and I simply don't use the stove nearly as much. That being said, it's and old smoke dragon and when I do use it I often strive to get long burns in the only way you can with old smoke dragons, and that is to choke the heck out of it ( lots of smoke).


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## tfdchief (Feb 25, 2013)

Lumber-Jack said:


> Pen I like your thinking, I'd like a solution if there is one, one other than just removing the cap altogether.
> 
> 
> Steve my experience is quite the opposite. I have the exact same cap on a chimney in my shop, but it's connected to an old Lopi smoke dragon, and I haven't had the problem of creosote build up on that cap. Mind you, the cap may be the same, but the *chimney is a lot shorter,* and I simply don't use the stove nearly as much. That being said, it's and old smoke dragon and when I do use it I often strive to get long burns in the only way you can with old smoke dragons, and that is to choke the heck out of it ( lots of smoke).


 
I think that often,*"chimney is a lot shorter," *that really has a lot to do with it if you burn at good temps.  How you you are not getting build up on your shop stove, choking it down, I have no idea.....seems like all the ingredients would be there......probably that you simply don't burn it enough to notice much build up.


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## etiger2007 (Feb 25, 2013)

Good story, I tend to always look at my cap when Im getting in the car or doing something outside.  This is just another reason to be careful.  Kudos to the neighbor for letting you know.


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## corey21 (Feb 25, 2013)

Glad every thing was OK. I have never had problem with my cap yet.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 25, 2013)

tfdchief said:


> I think that often,*"chimney is a lot shorter," *that really has a lot to do with it if you burn at good temps. How you you are not getting build up on your shop stove, choking it down, I have no idea.....seems like all the ingredients would be there......probably that you simply don't burn it enough to notice much build up.


Like you said, "lots of ingredients", the shorter chimney really seems to be the main one. Although I choke that shop stove down a lot, I suspect higher flue temps (especially near the top), is the reason I don't get more build up. The baffle in the EPA stove, in the house, contains a lot of the active flames, where as in the old smoke dragon the flames have a straight up the flue route, and I'll bet when I have that thing burning wide open I'm sure that I'm getting flames and secondary burns, with all that un-burned smoke, going on half way up the flue or more. Hmmm? I wonder if that is considered a chimney fire???

Seriously though, when ever I clean the house flue I notice that all the creosote build up, and I mean all of it, happens on the top 5 ft or less, where it is most exposed to the cool outside air. If I was to lop off that last 5 ft I would probably solve any creosote problems, including the cap. Of course if I did that it would no longer meet code....


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## begreen (Feb 25, 2013)

Lots of unburnt wood gases (smoke) exiting the chimney at under 250F is a guarantee for creosote buildup. Instead of smoldering, burn shorter hotter fires.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 25, 2013)

begreen said:


> Lots of unburnt wood gases (smoke) exiting the chimney at under 250F is a guarantee for creosote buildup. Instead of smoldering, burn shorter hotter fires.


That's good advice Begreen, but other factors obviously at play here. The only creosote issue I seem to have, and the main topic of the thread, is the small amount of creosote that deposits on chimney caps, and the fact it can ignite. In my case that only seems to be happening on my EPA stove where I do burn very cleanly (hot, non-smoldering fires), evidenced by the fact that the chimney itself had no significant creosote build up. The stove in the shop, where I have smoldering fires sometimes, hasn't had that problem, likely because of the shorter chimney, and because it just gets less use.
In reality, it makes sense that any cap will get more deposit than the flue itself since the flue is insulated, and the cap is just a thin un-insulated piece of metal that sits on the very top of the flue where the smoke has had the greatest opportunity to cool down. The longer the flue, the greater opportunity that smoke is going to have to cool down, and since the cap is so exposed to the cool air it's basically going to act like a creosote magnate when the smoke flows past it.


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## rideau (Feb 25, 2013)

My pipe is about 8 years old now.  Have never had any creosote on the cap or screen, never had anything to clean out of the chimney except in the stovepipe section.  Cup or two a year.  Long chimney, interior, ICC pipe.  Burn at moderate stove temps (usually in the 350 stove top temp range), flue temp 500 - 600, because I need to get a damper....


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## lopiliberty (Feb 25, 2013)

Had the same problem a few week ago although I don't use a cap on the flue when burning 24/7.  Started a fire one night got it going good and happened to look out the window and embers not sparks where raining down from the sky.  I think it was just the locust kindling and locust splits popping and snapping because I check this flue every Thursday when I clean out the ashes and it is completely spotless and the last time it was cleaned was November.  I actually had to go out and stump out some of the embers


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## etiger2007 (Feb 25, 2013)

I know all installs are different but I NEVER have any accumulation of creosote on my cap and my uninsulated liner only has a thin coat of powdery soot.  My wood supply is marginal at best except what Savage gave me, my wood ranges from 20 to 22 % moisture.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 26, 2013)

etiger2007 said:


> I know all installs are different but I NEVER have any accumulation of creosote on my cap and my uninsulated liner only has a thin coat of powdery soot. My wood supply is marginal at best except what Savage gave me, my wood ranges from 20 to 22 % moisture.


I find that hard to believe that you have zero creosote accumulation on your chimney cap. Very little maybe, but "NEVER any" seems pretty remarkable. Could you provide pictures of this exceptional cap, maybe I'll switch caps. Seriously.

I kind of regret not taking a video of by burning chimney cap now.


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## etiger2007 (Feb 26, 2013)

Lumber-Jack said:


> I find that hard to believe that you have zero creosote accumulation on your chimney cap. Very little maybe, but "NEVER any" seems pretty remarkable. Could you provide pictures of this exceptional cap, maybe I'll switch caps. Seriously.
> 
> I kind of regret not taking a video of by burning chimney cap now.


 
Yup Ill take one when I get home from work.


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## etiger2007 (Feb 26, 2013)

etiger2007 said:


> Yup Ill take one when I get home from work.









This is hands down the worst my cap has ever looked, this was after my first year of burning, burning 10 month seasoned red oak, and no mid season chminey cleaning.   Ok my cap dosent look like I just bought,   My cap looks better now that my wood is seasoned and I have a better understanding how to burn clean fires.


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 26, 2013)

etiger2007 said:


> This is hands down the worst my cap has ever looked, this was after my first year of burning, burning 10 month seasoned red oak, and no mid season chminey cleaning. Ok my cap dosent look like I just bought, My cap looks better now that my wood is seasoned and I have a better understanding how to burn clean fires.


Thanks for posting the picture Ed, I gota tell you though, my cap didn't have an awful lot more creosote build up on it than what I see on yours. The top center area of your cap looks like the creosote area that had the burning ember area on my cap, just a bit thicker though. It was however wetter looking, as I mentioned at the start of the thread, the wetter creosote I've noticed forms when it's windy and cools the cap more. I notice your cap seems taller too, so it is physically further away from the flue exit, so that is might be another reason why it gets less creosote deposits.


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## etiger2007 (Feb 26, 2013)

Your welcome Randy,  Must have been a freak thing where an ember got caught just right.


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## clemsonfor (Feb 26, 2013)

I hope my neighbors cap never catches fire, he has about a 5" creosote cickle hanging off of it


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 27, 2013)

clemsonfor said:


> I hope my neighbors cap never catches fire, he has about a 5" creosote cickle hanging off of it


This is what gets me about all this, my flue was clean and I only had a light coating of creosote on my cap, and yet it was enough to ignite. Other manage to let it go until there caps are plugged and they seem to be fine.
Guess I'm just the lucky one.  This is why I clean my chimney regularly.


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## Trickle (Feb 27, 2013)

Randy, love the system you have.  I am considering a metal roof and that was one of my concerns was how to service the chimney.  Any more details on your system to get out and get back?

Thx,
Trickle


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 27, 2013)

Trickle said:


> Randy, love the system you have. I am considering a metal roof and that was one of my concerns was how to service the chimney. Any more details on your system to get out and get back?
> 
> Thx,
> Trickle


Hey trickle, that video pretty much shows it all, not too much to it. I could take a close up picture of the roof brackets if you'd like although they are pretty simple too. I made them myself and painted them to match the roof color and secured them to the roof permanently. Having that attic area accessible from that other roof where I can store the planks, ladder and chimney cleaning rods and brush makes things a very convenient, but the main thing is having a way of getting access to the flue, which was really difficult before I installed the roof brackets. The roof is steeper than it looks in the video, and impossible to walk on on otherwise, and any metal roof is super dangerous to walk on if it is wet or frosty, even if it has just a slight slope.
My shop, which also has a wood stove and flue, has the same metal on the roof, although it has a regular 4/12 pitch, so I can walk on it without any special brackets, but I have to wait for a time when the roof is completely bone dry, any snow or frost on the roof and forget about it.


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## Trickle (Feb 27, 2013)

Randy, if you have a chance next time you are up there to grab a pic of the brackets that would be great.  No rush though, I have to buy the place first before I roof it.  Looks like the brackets are made of angle iron and installed on top of and screwed through the metal roof?  

I guess I thought you couldn't walk on a metal roof at all, not because of the pitch per se, but because most metal roofs I've seen installed are screwed to a one by grid of boards over the asphalt shingles.  Seems like if I stepped on that it would dent in and collapse anywhere I wasn't stepping on the one bys.  See the double bubble picture for what I mean.  Instead, maybe your metal roof was installed flush with the plywood and over tar paper, similar to the installation2 picture.

So what are the planks made out of, wood?  If so you might think about rigging something so the bars and brush are attached to the second plank, might save you one less trip up and down the ladder.  And that antenna looks like a microwave internet receiver?

Trickle


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 27, 2013)

Tickle, it sounds like you are where I was about 5 years ago. We bought this old shack of a house with the intention of fixing many things and remodeling it, including a new roof. The roof was in very bad shape and needed a lot more than just some new metal roofing on it. There was (is) actually two different roofs joined together. The roof where the chimney goes through has a proper attic area, and beyond that is a chalet style second story with no attic space. To access to the attic space, where the chimney is, is through an access hatch in a closet off a bedroom upstairs.
First thing we wanted to fix was how the two roofs were joined together, it's hard to explain, but the two roofs didn't line up properly. To fix (hide) that, we raised the roof over the chalet style living area 2", and used that 2" space to add 2" of foam insulation. You can see a 2" brown cap where the two roofs meet.
Before doing that however, we stripped all the shingles off the roof, (1) to make it easier to frame the 2" height into the roof, and (2) to expose the sheeting to see what kind of shape it was in. Glad we did this because the top 4 ft of sheeting was in terrible shape and needed to be replaced.
Then, yes we strapped it all with 1x4" strapping. 
You were mentioning walking on the roof, there are two things that you can do to make the roof strong enough to walk on. (a) Buy heavier metal roofing, (b) put your strapping closer together. In my case I did both. I didn't buy the thickest metal, but I got the step up from the thinnest I could get. (sorry, I don't remember the gauges). Also, instead of putting the strapping 2 ft apart as many do, I went 18" apart. If you calculate the difference in how many extra 1x4s you'll need, and the extra cost, I'm sure you'll see it's well worth putting the 1x4s a little closer together, and not have to worry about bending the metal if you step on it in the wrong place. Because you screw though the strapping to hold the metal roofing on, you'll use a few more screws too. This is good and bad, the good is that your roof will be more secure, it's bad cause you'll have to spend a few dollars more on screws.

Ok, on to the roof jacks pictures.
I'm also including some pictures of how I secured the ladder to the roof, and a picture of my chimney flashing on the shop. There was some discussion in this forum a while back about the best way to take care of the chimney flashing on a metal roof. You'll see that the flashing on the shop chimney looks nice and clean, and it's definitely water tight. Basically the way we did that was to cut a hole through the roof where the chimney goes through, install the chimney and flashing, then put another piece of roofing overlapping the chimney flashing and up under the ridge cap. I did the same thing on the house, but I used a black piece of metal roofing and haven't got around to changing it yet.
And finally a couple pictures of what the house and roof use to look like when we bought it, and what it looks like now.

Oh and yeah, you got it, microwave internet receiver. This post went through there. 




*Roof Jacks* _Notice in this picture you can see the little hooks on the ridge vent that hold the chimney brush and rods._





*Ladder hooks*






*Shop chimney flashing*






*Old house and roof* _ Notice the bump where the two roofs meet._





*Updated house and Roof. *_ Notice the closer roof is 2" lower that the area further back behind the chimney, separated by the brown cap._
*



*


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## rideau (Feb 27, 2013)

Big improvement!  Looks great.

Do you check the fittings regularly?  Gather they are holding up well.


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## Trickle (Feb 27, 2013)

Randy, you are right, I am exactly where you were 5 years ago, looking at buying an old shack to fix up.  

That all makes total sense, thanks so much for taking the time and the pics.  I learned a lot from you today and will put it into the roof of the new place.

The place looks fantastic, i even like the fish.

Thank you!


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## Trilifter7 (Feb 27, 2013)

This brings to mind the question if you guys use DW or SW inside pipe and how much difference in flue temps it could possibly make?


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## Lumber-Jack (Feb 27, 2013)

rideau said:


> Big improvement! Looks great.
> 
> Do you check the fittings regularly? Gather they are holding up well.


Thanks.
Not sure which "fitting" are you referring to? The roof jacks?  They have 1 1/2" screws securing them, of course there's always the possibility could shear off. 



Trickle said:


> The place looks fantastic, i even like the fish.
> 
> Thank you!


You're welcome,,,, keep us updated with your progress.



Trilifter7 said:


> This brings to mind the question if you guys use DW or SW inside pipe and how much difference in flue temps it could possibly make?


I have double wall in the house, and single wall in the shop. So again, the house pipe aught to be warmer.


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