Chimney Meltdown

[Bartman]

Got up this morning, had to get more wood off the pile, temps here are +10F, glanced up at the chimney and to my horror saw a glowing drip of molten metal hanging from the cap. Looking at the cap, I see it looks distorted as if heated to high, then I see another drip of what looks to be maybe molten aluminum. Could I have had a chimney fire and slept through it? I touched the outside wall of the chimney chase and it's cold, I race downstairs to shut the air to the boiler. then run to my truck to get the extension ladder. After climbing down from the trucks roof, dragging the ladder to the chimney and trying to dig the damn feet into the frozen ground, I race up the ladder to see what damage has been done. What do I find? A damn amber colored icicle, the the morning sun shining through it looks like glowing red metal........ hh: I guess I've been getting a little paranoid about chimney fires. So now the ladder is still against the chimney and when this temp breaks, I'm going up with a brush.

 

[kevin fitzsimmons]

In moments of mind racing panic like this i have found that grabbing hunting binoculars are a good place to start. If there is a real problem, i am more likely to get out an extiguisher and have it sucked up flue from the stove racing up a ladder in a panic is recipe for a broken neck.

 

[deerhuntrer]

Have had small chimney fires before but shut the damper and should go out. Have a fire extinguisher ready at all times. Temps here are 5 degrees during the day, 15 below at nite. Having more trouble with ice jams on the roof than anything else. I hate ice jams

 

[Bartman]

I have one of those "flip stick" type extinguishers, supposedly if you have a chimney fire. Throw it in the fire and it puts out the chimney fire, Never had to use it so I don't know if they work.

 

[Eric Johnson]

I've torched off a beauty or two in my day. That's another nice thing about gasifiers, Bartman, no creosote.

My brain doesn't work very well first thing in the morning, so I can relate to your panic. It was -15 up in the Adirondacks (where I work) this morning. I've seen it hit -45, and I've seen it go below zero and stay there for more than a week. We had about five below down here in the Valley, but you wouldn't know if by staying inside, which I've been doing. Lots of steam coming out the stack when I loaded the boiler up this morning.

 

[Bartman]

It's amazing what a small icicle can do, I should have taken a picture because even at 4' away it looked like molten metal.

 

[slowzuki]

Our stove chimney had one of those "snotsicles" hanging off it the other day. My dad was over and thought it was a river of creosote running down the outside of the chimney!

 

[Bartman]

Well today I went to Home Depot and bought a brush, rods, and creosote granules. Has anyone ever used this stuff? It's supposed to make the creosote crumble so you can brush it, I was looking for the logs but couldn't find any.