March 10,2012 - 4 hospitalized after pellet stove fire - Dirty stove overheated?

[Don2222]

Hello

It states the dirty pellet stove overheated and the ash caught fire! Can that really happen if they are not cleaned often?

See aftermath video here
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/fire-crews-battle-flames-in-gerry

4 hospitalized after pellet stove fire

Updated: Sunday, 11 Mar 2012, 11:40 AM EDT
Published : Saturday, 10 Mar 2012, 3:40 PM EST

GERRY, N.Y. (WIVB) - Four people are recovering from a raging fire in the southern tier that is believed to have been started from a pellet stove.
Four people escaped with their lives, but had to be hospitalized, following a house fire in the Chautauqua County Town of Gerry.
Gerry Fire Chief Carl Fransen said, "I was about three miles away; I could see heavy black smoke over all the trees. I knew we had a good fire going."
The victims' grandfather, John Venable, said, "It was just a big ball [of fire] coming out right next to the stairway there, about in the area where that stove is."
Venable is talking about the pellet stove that two sons and grandson used to heat their home. The flames shooting out of the house were so intense, he says, he could not get in to rescue his family.
"[The] bedrooms are all toward the back side, and there's just a narrow hallway to get by. The stove's within three, four feet of the hallway. So you couldn't get through there at all," he said.
Venable's grandson had to jump out of his bedroom window. Not knowing he'd made it out, the boy's father raced back in to find him.
Venable said, "That's when he got burned pretty good."
"Guys did a pretty quick stop on the initial part of the fire. We had about an hour-and-a-half of overhaul. We had a large pond right here in the yard of the house, which helped extensively with water," said Chief Fransen.
The pellet stove hadn't been cleaned out, according to investigators. They believe the stove overheated, igniting the ash built up inside.
Chautauqua County Fire Investigator Scott Cummings said, "You have to maintain them, clean them. Just like a wood stove, same thing. That would really help. And the other thing is smoke detectors. Unfortunately, in this residence, the smoke detectors did not work."

 

[bbfarm]

My uneducated guess would be the venting was full of creasote and that is what caught fire.

I would think if the stove was truely overheating the safety shut off would kick in and kill the fire.

 

[velvetfoot]

Smoke detectors aren't perfect either. I wonder if they had batteries in them or they just didn't go off.

 

[Don2222]

My uneducated guess would be the venting was full of creasote and that is what caught fire.

I would think if the stove was truely overheating the safety shut off would kick in and kill the fire.

I have a friend with a vertical rise on the outside of the house for a Magnum BabyCountryside. The manual shows a pic of their venting and states not to do it because it will clog up and make the stove stop working.
It did, she said smoke got in the house and they stopped using it. So the installation could still be at fault here!

See pic in manual here
https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...ve-venting-for-magnum-baby-countryside.85610/

 

[DexterDay]

Yep.. Sounds like Creo built up within the stove and venting.....

Not good. Keep your stove clean and your house safe.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Well it is possible for a dirty stove to overheat and the high temperature system not see it.

I really doubt that it overheated to the point it set ash alight (by definition ash is considered non combustible and the temperatures required likely vastly exceed those produced even when 'sote lights up).

It could be a 'sote fire they definitely get very hot and can be the end result of burning a dirty stove.

Remember a clean stove is a happy, safe, and warm stove.

A dirty stove is a potential killer and home destroyer.

Your choice.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

dunno what stove it is, the thing to remember is ash is an insulator if enough was built up it could possibly have tricked the sensor i guess (note this is a guess not an accusation)

 

[ChandlerR]

I have to agree. If the creosote caught fire in the pipe then none of the safeties would have tripped, right? Remember two years ago, I had a creosote fire at my termination. Scary but I learned a valuable lesson. My stove was whistle clean but I had not looked outside for a while.

 

[DexterDay]

I have to agree. If the creosote caught fire in the pipe then none of the safeties would have tripped, right? Remember two years ago, I had a creosote fire at my termination. Scary but I learned a valuable lesson. My stove was whistle clean but I had not looked outside for a while.

By Mod'ing your burn pot, you shouldn't have a Dirty Black Pipe anymore. That stove is a Disaster without getting more air for a Better burn...

A "Proper" burning stove. Should never have conditions like that.. Ever?!?!?! Even if it goes all season without cleaning. All depends on the model of stove (some burn better than others), what the owner thinks is proper install, and what the maintenance schedule is (cleaning/lubing).

There are some here that clean the vent yearly (but some need to do it monthly), I have even seen someone go almost 3 seasons without touching the vent (I cleaned this stove) The ash was still a nice grey color (Quad Sante Fe). It ran great... Until it couldn't run anymore.

So a lot is on the unit. The quality of the unit and the burn efficiency.

What stove was it??? Does anyone know?

 

[smoke show]

There are some here that clean the vent yearly....

Guilty.

 

[Defiant]

A clean stove is a happy one, you are going to get burned, if you are not concerned.

 

[DexterDay]

Guilty.

I wasn't naming names!.... But if you wanna call.yourself out?

I did the Quad once and the Fahrenheit was done recently. So they had one cleaning each. At about 1 ton a piece, they are even.

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Flue fires with pellet stoves are far more rare than with a wood stove, due to the fact that these stoves burn "clean"

Now this said, if the stove had become dirty and plugged with ash (all to common) there well could have been an accumulation of combustibles in the vent.

I run my small stove on low almost all the time except when starting.

We have had the vent catch fire twice and the stoves over temp sensors did not see it.
The fire was in the outer reaches of the exhaust housing and into the vent pipe.

I was home both times and smelled the paint on the vent starting to smoke.
Turning the stove off did not immediately snuff the fire out either.

Using nut shells does not produce creosote in the classic sense, but on low the deposites left in the vent are combusitble.

The second time this happened, I removed the 45 elbow and peeked into the vent.
There were no flames, just a complete ring of red hot glowing material inside the pipe.

We dont know the entire story on this unfortunate incident with the house fire.
Was the venting done correctly? was it connected to an existing chimney?
What exactly caught fire first that lead to the house going up?
Were there combustibles too close to the stove?

Fire is a wonderful servant for sure, but far too many people take this servant for granted and do not give it the respect it deserves.

Sadly will will probably never know the entire story.

It is a fact though, that far too many folks don't do the needed cleaning and maintenance on pellet stoves.

Every day when I go for my daily walk, I pass a little house that has a metal chimney through the roof.
The stainless vent cap has black gooooey creosote dripping off the rim that has also made a little rig/pile on the roof below.

I can only imagine the condition of that chimney.
This is on a wood stove I am assuming as there is usually and acrid smelling smoke coming from the pipe.

We certainly need to be careful with our stoves and maintain them well.

Snowy

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Fire danger is something that I personally take very serious.
Makes no difference what you use, be it a pellet stove, oil burner, natural gas, wood stove or electric wall heaters.

Fire is a friend only when we are in control of it.

Fact: far too many folks DO NOT take their stoves seriously enough.

This is when things can and do go bad wrong.

Snowy

 

[Don2222]

Fire danger is something that I personally take very serious.
Makes no difference what you use, be it a pellet stove, oil burner, natural gas, wood stove or electric wall heaters.

Fire is a friend only when we are in control of it.

Fact: far too many folks DO NOT take their stoves seriously enough.

This is when things can and do go bad wrong.

Snowy

You are right Snowy and I still see too many venting installations that were done hap hazzardly. Straight thru the wall with no vertical rise that throw sparks out and set decks and sides of houses on fire! Also outdoor vertical rise in the venting in cold climates that plug up with pellet dust way to often and cause smoke to backup into the house. Believe it or not those are acceptable installations! If the venting installation is not acceptable just imagine what damage it can do!

 

[Snowy Rivers]

I have 4 stoves here that are all direct vented (straight out) with a 45 down on the ends.

Never ever been any issues at all.

Now I am on these things like a bad smell. The vents get vacuumed every other week, or if I dont vacuum them I use the leaf blower and suck them out that way.

Never any stains on the house or other issues.

We had a tall vent on our first pellet stove and it was a real pain to keep clean. This was my reason for going direct vent.

I can clean the stove and the vent in less than 30 minutes and Know that its clean.

I agree, some of the ventings we have seen Piccy's of are sketchy at best.

We did not see how the stove mentioned in the start of this thread was vented so it makes it very hard to form an opinion as to what really happened.

There is certainly a good chance that the install was not done right.

Snowy

 

[Snowy Rivers]

Just a thought here.

Our Advantage 2 will definately fill the vent up about half full (horizontal run) in about 3 weeks of 24/7 but the vent stays hot and dry all the way except the bird screen cap.

The Prodigy on the other hand will leave a combustible residue in the pipe after a couple weeks of running.

I never run the Advantage higher than the 1 setting.

The shells burn so much different than Pellets so its hard to compare the settings.

The horizontal run on the advantage is about 3 feet inside the house, and it will be very warm to the touch, almost hot.

This keeps it dry inside me thinks.

The little stoves pipe is 2 feet overall run and it never gets more than barely warm.

So many things enter into the dynamics of a possible cause for a flue fire or ???

I would really like to see the wall thimbles made with a double jacket with air space between the vent and the first barrier ring and then a non combustible insulator between the forst ring and an outer ring that actually touches the sheet rock and the siding.

The newer thimbles have gotten smaller and this places the outer jacket of the pipe much closer to the metal ring that penetrates the wall.

My feeling is that the vent should be able to run at 300F and not even get any heat through to the wall.

During the two flue fires we have had with the little stove, the vent got hot enough inside the house to start buring the paint off and this is what alerted me to the trouble.

I slid the inner thimble back away from the wall and things were getting pretty warm in there.

I would like to see a greater heat barrier than what is currently offered.

If not this, maybe a special tripple insulated section that is used to penetrate the wall.

Maybe I am just being anal ????


Snowy

 

[DexterDay]

I have 4 stoves here that are all direct vented (straight out) with a 45 down on the ends.

Never ever been any issues at all.

Now I am on these things like a bad smell. The vents get vacuumed every other week, or if I dont vacuum them I use the leaf blower and suck them out that way.

Never any stains on the house or other issues.

We had a tall vent on our first pellet stove and it was a real pain to keep clean. This was my reason for going direct vent.

I can clean the stove and the vent in less than 30 minutes and Know that its clean.

I agree, some of the ventings we have seen Piccy's of are sketchy at best.

We did not see how the stove mentioned in the start of this thread was vented so it makes it very hard to form an opinion as to what really happened.

There is certainly a good chance that the install was not done right.

Snowy

I agree.. A direct vent does not mean its gonna be a bad install. Nor catch a house on Fire. My Quad is Direct vent...

If the Manufacturers instructions and Vent Manufacturers instructions are followed and all Clearance to Combustibles are met? (And the stove is properly maintained) then all shouod be fine.

 

[heat seeker]

My Croix is a direct vent. I clean it about every ton, and even with ashy pellets, there's never more than about 1/16" accumulation in the pipe. I run a brush through it with the combustion blower running, and the dust just blows out. Not the least sign of creosote in there.
Nothing collects on the siding, although some residue has collected on the brick chimney that's about 6" away from the termination of the vent. I run the stove on a 'stat, high/low.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

biggest thing to remember folks is a clean stove and vent allows the proper proportions of air through the unit to consume the combustibles completely, a unit or flue that is allowed to get dirty affects this critical airflow through the combustion chamber. this skews the air fuel mix to a richer less complete burn. this can easily result in incomplete combustion and the products of this to be left in the exhaust pathway, waiting for a spark or simply enough heat to ignite it. remember also that a dirty stove does not "transfer" as much heat and a dirty exhaust path slows air down causing stack temps to actually rise as well.

lets keep em clean folks, if not don might be posting about your "incident" in the future. dont let don post about your incident in the future