I loaded up my Hearthstone Shelburne with some cherry rounds on a small be of coals around 7:00.
It took awhile for things to light off, but once they did, the stovepipe started to crackle and the paint started to smoke.
The first floor was filled with a lot of smoke and the second floor started to fill with smoke as well.
I was pretty calm at this point, because I knew what was going on and I know my setup can handle it, but then I felt the drywall about 3 feet from the thimble and it was very hot. I immediately thought I had fire in the wall. BTW smoke detector in the room is going off this entire time. So, yelled up to my wife (she's in the tub) get the kids and dog and get out. Dialed 911 and had units here in 15 minutes - impressive, because we are off the beaten path. By the time they got here temps were going down. I had tucked a wet rag in the air intake of the stove. And the wall had cooled. We determined that the heat I that I felt that prompted the call was caused by radiant heat from the pipe in front of the wall - and not fire in the wall. The crew hung out for awhile, checked things with their IR camera, and left without putting any holes in the walls. Thanks to the weather 2 of their pumper trucks got stuck, and the township had to bring a large tractor to un-stick them.
LESSONS:
1. check stovepipe more often for buildup
2. IMPORTANT: tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy the smoke detectors that are wirelessly interconnected, because my wife did not hear the detector upstairs. We have others up there, but I don't know how much sooner we all would have been alerted if they all went off at the same time. I would encourage all to consider this if you're not interconnected right now.
Whew - I need a drink.....
It took awhile for things to light off, but once they did, the stovepipe started to crackle and the paint started to smoke.
The first floor was filled with a lot of smoke and the second floor started to fill with smoke as well.
I was pretty calm at this point, because I knew what was going on and I know my setup can handle it, but then I felt the drywall about 3 feet from the thimble and it was very hot. I immediately thought I had fire in the wall. BTW smoke detector in the room is going off this entire time. So, yelled up to my wife (she's in the tub) get the kids and dog and get out. Dialed 911 and had units here in 15 minutes - impressive, because we are off the beaten path. By the time they got here temps were going down. I had tucked a wet rag in the air intake of the stove. And the wall had cooled. We determined that the heat I that I felt that prompted the call was caused by radiant heat from the pipe in front of the wall - and not fire in the wall. The crew hung out for awhile, checked things with their IR camera, and left without putting any holes in the walls. Thanks to the weather 2 of their pumper trucks got stuck, and the township had to bring a large tractor to un-stick them.
LESSONS:
1. check stovepipe more often for buildup
2. IMPORTANT: tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy the smoke detectors that are wirelessly interconnected, because my wife did not hear the detector upstairs. We have others up there, but I don't know how much sooner we all would have been alerted if they all went off at the same time. I would encourage all to consider this if you're not interconnected right now.
Whew - I need a drink.....