Firemen used chemical is Mansfield, now full of black goo!!!

[firefighterjake]

Did they build chimneys different in the old days? Yes . . . as mentioned they often built the chimneys out of brick . . . no clay liner . . . and if you go back even further to the colonial days they even built chimneys out of wood . . . yes wood . . . as you might have guessed this was a fire hazard and in fact one of the first fire laws on the book so to speak was a ban on building a home with wooden chimneys. Unfortunately, even today I have run across folks burning in homes with unlined brick chimneys.

Or did people just know better what wood to use and how to build a fire that did not produce so much creosote? I would guess the answer to this would be no . . . but since many of these homes using the older chimneys were using fireplaces or the old, leaky cast iron stoves from the Victorian Period which would mean a lot of the heat would go up the chimney . . . and a warm chimney is a happy chimney when it comes to creosote production . . . of course they may have also swept their chimneys a little more . . . and then there is the obvious answer . . . I see a lot of old foundations in my walks in the woods.

Why didn't they use clay liners in the old days - unavailability or cost or no perceived need? I suspect that many did not think they would need such a product . . . probably figured that as long as the chimney appeared to be in good shape they would be OK . . . well that and the product most likely did not exist for a long time.

If insured loss or damage due to chimney fires due to unlined chimneys were frequent enough then insurers would add a question about that to their homeowners insurance application. The fact that they don't leads me to believe that ones that due other than "clean out the chimney" and do no damage are not that frequent. I would guess that today you would be far more likely to find a lined masonry chimney than an unlined chimney . . . but that said I have and continue to see unlined chimneys in my line of work . . . typically it's on a chimney fire call or an inspection when a person is thinking about installing a woodstove or running their fireplace in a chimney that hasn't been used in that fashion for a long time and they want to make sure it's safe to use.

I assume it must be much harder to sweep a chimney without a clay liner than one with one, correct? I'm thinking most sweeps would refuse to sweep a chimney without a clay liner due to the safety issue . . . but yes . . . brush size would not be correct and a clay liner gives you a little more of a "smoother" surface vs. brick and mortar . . . although to tell the truth this would be an assumption on my part.

What removes creosote during the sweeping process? The physical and intimate contact of the brush bristles scraping alongside the surface. If a chimney is not tile lined is there a danger that by loosening up the creosote it will seep into the mortar joints between the bricks? I think the more likely danger is that over time the mortar will fall out, cracks will form and the heat and potential sparks from the fire can start nearby combustible material on fire . . . which is always a potential problem since a person burning in an unlined chimney often has framing too close to that chimney . . . it's the way many chimneys and homes were built.

 

[firefighterjake]

I am curious to know the standard for a chimney fire. In other words, is it possible to have a controlled chimney fire, based on prior knowledge of how much particulate builds up in a certain amount of time, much like controlled forest fires to get rid of old and dead stuff on the forest floor?

I'm not endorsing chimney fires for chimney maintenance. At the same time, if someone has burned wood for almost 4 decades and knows when it is "time" to get rid of small buildup by burning it out, is it any different than having a controlled hot fire every day to burn off soot on the glass door? Same principle.

I realize modern stoves and proper practices make the idea of small controlled chimney fires rather ridiculous, but at thew same time, if one knows their wood, their chimney and their maintenance schedule for their own ways of doing things, I kind of wonder if Aurora needed folks getting after him as happened.

To the issue of doing things in better ways and no parent would not buckle their kids up? Sorry. If it were up to me, I'd let the kids move around and not clamp them in for hours at a time on trips and they begin to go nuts, when I was all over the back of the car, playing with toys, sleeping up on the back window on long trips, and "free to move about the cabin." Now, people are forced to come up with electronic devices to keep kids from going crazy buckled up. Same with helmets. Same with everything the government forces people to do "for their own good."

I think elected officials need to keep their nose out of everyone's business and America would be much better off. Right now it's a tax refund for wood stoves meeting their standards. At some point they will outlaw stoves because of "global warming." Politicians are are more fickle than squirrels in the road.

I've run across old timers who would routinely and purposefully get a chimney fire going by either running the stove hot or stuffing hay in their chimney and touching it off . . . the problem of course is if an errant spark lands on dry grass, the chimney gets too hot and catches combustible framing on fire, etc.

So to answer your question . . . it is possible . . . but is it wise? I would say no . . . because you can do something that is marginally unsafe for a long time, but it does not make that practice right or any safer . . . especially if there is a better and safer way to do something.

For example, you can choose to drive 85 mph down a snow-covered road . . . and you may have no issues with this practice for years . . . until that one day a Grandma pulls out of a blind drive. Of course, this could also happen if you were driving the speed limit . . . but the difference is that going the speed limit at least would give you a better chance of avoiding the accident and/or reducing the likelihood of serious injury.

As for purposefully doing something a little bad to avoid something that is really bad (i.e. purposefully setting a chimney fire to avoid a large chimney fire) . . . in this case it just doesn't make sense in light of the fact that you can avoid this whole issue all together by burning seasoned wood, running the woodstove and chimney at the proper temps and checking/cleaning the chimney when necessary. Maybe I'm one of those government safety Nazis . . . but I would rather do the safer thing and know for sure that my family and my home were as safe as could be.

Maybe this practice was done in the past . . . but just because something was done in the past doesn't make it good. I'm kind of partial to my car . . . vs. using a horse like they used to in the old days. I'm kind of partial to using my microwave vs. using a wood-fired oven . . . and since you brought it up (here is where we can respectfully disagree with each other) I'm kind of partial to seatbelts in cars vs. no seatbelts.

I do agree with you by the way about the government mandating safety for folks . . . to a point . . . but sadly while a lot of folks should do the right thing and you would think they would want to keep them and their family as safe as possible . . . many, if given a choice without any immediate repercussions, would opt to do the easy thing (i.e. not buckle up, not use a helmet, etc.)

As a firefighter I personally started buckling up after going to one fatality where a college student rolled his Jeep and a friend was pinned underneath . . . several folks, firefighters who arrived before the engine included, had to watch this guy die in front of them as they could not get the vehicle off the kid or stop the fire. I have seen in the past few years car accidents where the vehicle is smashed up . . . and the only physical complaints from the driver are some minor scratches from the airbag and some chest pain . . . from where their seatbelt kept them inside the vehicle vs. being thrown through the windshield . . . and sadly I have seen folks who have chosen to not wear a seatbelt and I have had to deal with that . . .

The same rules apply to many "safety" choices we make . . . smoke detectors, car seats, carbon monoxide detectors, smoking, etc. In some cases the choices we make affect only us . . . although in many cases the choices we make affect others who had no say . . . children, grandchildren . . . heck, even in the case of folks who choose to not wear their seatbelt . . . you better believe you and I are both paying for the quad or paraplegic who was thrown from their car and who is handicapped for life . . . we're paying for it in our taxes and in our insurance premiums.

OK, enough ranting . . . as I said . . . I will agree to disagree with you on some of these points.

 

[TANSTAF1]

I am from Maine and living in exile in MA. My parent's house was built during the civil war. I assume the chimney was not (ever) lined, but as a kid we used a Franklin stove in it for a long time without any problem but only as a supplement to the central heating system, but I assume before we owned it and before it had a furnace, that it was used more regularly. It had a (blocked off) fireplace on the second floor.

I live in Massachusetts now and my current house was built during the depression. Neither chimney in it is lined. We have never used the fireplace chimney because it is not lined. Until recently I thought the only problem was creosote, but now I understand that oil or gas furnaces can also cause chimney problems, so we will soon have the furnace chimney lined.

I have looked up into the smoke chamber above my current fireplace and the bricks are black, but I do not know if that is just soot or creosote. I have not tried to see how easy it is to clean it off. I though creosote was sticky and gooey, and sometimes glazed and do not understand how it can just be brushed off. Seems like a chimney fire might be a better way (just kidding).

We are considering doing something with the fireplace chimney so we can use it for atmosphere. I understand now that even if I add an insulated liner, I have to have it swept first. Since I do not have even a clay liner the lowest chimney sweep fee of $169 is not looking so bad.