Burning Bituminous : Round II

Berlin wrote:
...get the stovepipe temp up to about 500º for about 30 seconds, and burn the soot out of the stove and the connecting pipe...

I am concerned about revving my stove up like this. I think need to sweep my chimney. I have a fairly steep metal roof and I'm not sure how to get up there without killing myself!

The flue was used for coal from the 1920s-1959, oil from 1960-2006, unused from 2007-2010.

I started burning coal in Dec 2011. In the past year, I have burned about 2.5 tons of anthracite, about 600 lbs of Valier bitty, and about 1 face cord of wood, almost all of the wood in Dec 11/Jan 12.

Can 1 face cord of wood create enough creosote to cause a chimney fire? Or am I being too paranoid?

There's nothing wrong with sweeping the chimney just to get the wood creosote out - it will definately be a good idea because you don't want to take a chance with an unlined stack, although you may not need to. The small connecting pipe is the cause of your problem currently however. Is the thimble on the stack large enough to swap out the pipe for an 8"? If it's not, knocking the thimble out carefully and simply inserting the larger diameter pipe directly into the masonry isn't a big deal to do.

to stay on the roof, just lay a ladder up there flat on the roof with a rope (heavy rope) going over the peak to somthing VERY solid on the other side (large tree etc.).

You could also buy a set of ladder hooks. They just clamp onto the top of a ladder (I use a dedicated one piece ladder for this) and slide it up the roof to the the peak. Then you can climb right up. Around here you'll see houses with one permanantly laying on the roof next to the chimney. The wood burners chimney fire savior.

Well I hate to take the easy way out on this, but I have a chimney sweep coming over tomorrow morning
I should have done this at the beginning of the season!

My Harman Mark III always lets smoke into the room no matter how hard the draft is pulling. Whenever I burn trash or wood, it rolls right out into the house & stinks the place up. It's probably just the way the unit is designed.

I've had a similar experience with Bit and too small of a chimney pipe. ( I pretty much plugged a 6" pipe in under 48hrs)

It's a different animal and what works doesn't always seem to make sense. I've learned you need to be quick but paitent. Draft takes time to build and you need a good strong hot draft, but that also can make a mess if your not quick enough with a fresh load to keep it under control.

I've found it to be nearly impossible to not get a puff back with my stove, just wasn't desinged for what I'm feeding it!

Yeah, I think that S&A Hub Heater loves anthracite and prolly perform like the excellent heating machine it is. It's a real beaut.

Well I had my chimney cleaned today. Now I can rev 'er up! Now I got the bitty fire going again, just in time for the return of cooler temps!

According to the chimney sweep, there was some creosote buildup, but he said I wasn't in any danger of a chimney fire. It's still nice to have the peace-of-mind knowing that it is clean!

Wish my chimney was that straight! What a piece of cake to clean!

This is just ONE of the 2 jogs in my chimney ...

That's a freakin hoot Smitty. Someone built the beam right through the chimney? Sheesh

LDPosse wrote:Well I had my chimney cleaned today. Now I can rev 'er up! Now I got the bitty fire going again, just in time for the return of cooler temps!

I bet you get some SERIOUS draft on the sucker

SMITTY wrote:Wish my chimney was that straight! What a piece of cake to clean!

This is just ONE of the 2 jogs in my chimney ...

Smitty - I saw that pic before when searching the forum, hard to believe there aren't any leaks! Do you run a liner?

Lightning wrote:
I bet you get some SERIOUS draft on the sucker

It's 32 feet from the crock to the top, and it goes right up through the center of the house. It does pull a very strong draft!
I think the old timer that built the place in the 1920s knew what he was doing!

He was a coal burner, too. I'm digging a footer for an addition to my garage, there is a layer of coal ash almost a foot deep!

That's a real nice chimney built really well. Very few people take the care to make a chimney that perfect, especially in the interior. I like doing a nice, neat, well-thought out job when It comes to chimneys and fireplaces and I don't take that much care

Man this bitty can sure be finicky!!

So I loaded the stove up with a fresh hod of Valier's finest, and since it's chilly out, I moved the bimetal t-stat up a notch, from "Lo" to "2", and kept the over-fire air about 3/4 open.

I came back up to the 1st floor to surf the net a bit, and after about 10 mintues, I hear some popping noise coming from the basement. I went down and the stove was ROARING. My double-wall stove pipe was reading about 350 degrees and the stove top was at almost 650!

I immediately turned the t-stat back to low, cutting off the underfire air, and dialed back the overfire from 3/4 to about 1/4. It started slowing down, and then came a big WHOOSH! and got a puff of smoke out of the dampers on my new door.

Just now, about 15 mins later, it's all calmed down, and I put the overfire air up to 1/2 and it's burning like normal. I guess from now on, I will just keep the thing on "Lo" when burning bit, at least until the volatiles are burned off!

yup, it's a very fine adjustment for the underfire air while using Valier coal. Don't try to eliminate all the smoke from the coal using too much overfire air. Keep it cracked to allow an easy flame in the firebox, but use the underfire air to control the heat, once the overfire air sweet spot is found, there's really no need to adjust it.