Driving the rural road about two miles from home I noticed a burned house that had recently happened. It caught my attention and I stopped a ways past it, turned around and drove back for another look. Yep, went past turned around again for going home and was able to see it again. It sure did look like it started around the flue by whats left. It is worth noting that I have seen fresh cut and split wood on the porch of this place many times. The location is the place of many sheriff visits in the past. Much talk among the township folk of theft, harassment and drug, meth activity. Plenty of talk they are not good folks. Speaking with my nearest neighbor a good half mile away he had seen it and remarked he doubted that flue had ever seen a brush. Sorry to see folks get burned out but not sorry at the same time. It's a shame but could be a positive for the area. I do know there was no loss of life.
Every time I see a house fire in the news during the cold months I always wonder if it's related to wood burners. Good to hear no one perished. 2 ways I never wanna die, fire or drowning.
Not too long ago there was a house fire not far from me. I asked my friend who is captain of a local fire dept. if it was due to burning wood. He said it was. Also said the same guy had his garage burn down before and he thought it was from a stove. I guess some folks never learn.
I've told this story on here before but my neighbors at my last house used to go out and cut the nights wood off the log pile outside the back door about 430 pm every day. They would pile the wood next to the stove to dry. Their house burned a couple years after I moved away.
My landlord lives in the house below us. Smoke always pouring out of his chimney. His stove is a beat up leaky thing and if you saw it you would not want to be in the house with it burning. Ive seen him cut green red oak in October and burn it two months later. Burn wet wood too. I've offered to get a loads of free logs and go half with bucking bit he says no. He's the type that you cant tell anything.
That sounds exactly like my brother. Unfortunately, if he burns the house down, it is OUR house, been in the family 5 generations.
If you saw what he did you be appalled. Rigged up with a piece of sheet rock that has a big char on it. Pipe with coat hangers IIRC. A box fan close by circulating the heat. Been a few years since I've seen it so it may be worse, but doubt its better. In this case if he burned the house down it'd be an improvement.
Wow, there's a couple unsafe burners around where I live to, rusted single wall on outside just billowing white smoke every time you drive by. Serious question. In the old days could you not get class a pipe? Was single wall the only option? My guess is most of these single wall folks are old-timers, that and really really poor people Poor people have poor ways
Good question. The first time i recall seeing multi wall pipe is when my mom put in a free standing fireplace in the house she bought after my folks divorced in the mid 1970's. It was 12/10/8" and the outer pipe was just warm to the touch. My uncle had a wood stove in his garage and it had single wall...circa 1950's/60's. I hooked up the tiny wood stove in her daughter's house when she bought it with single thickness black stove pipe. Hooked into a flue that was for the furnace. Prior owner had used it for years and had to block it off to sell the house from what the neighbors told her.
There’s 100’s of folks like this on Facebook in woodstove pages. One page is even run by one and he tells people single wall pipe is a perfectly fine chimney. I got booted off the page for disagreeing and providing codes etc. So be it. One by one they will learn the hard way because they can’t be taught the easy way.
The house I currently live in was built in 1885-ish and I renovated it completely. There were two brick chimneys in the house, on in the center of the house and one by the kitchen for the old wood stove. I took both out and they were very brittle and in the way of what I wanted the rooms to look like. However, the kitchen chimney was just a standard single lined brick chimney with wood shaving insulation surrounding it to the roof. All of the wood shavings were black, and the interior of the chimney was thick with black creosote. I have no clue how the house made it over 100+ years. Some people just got lucky.
I come across something similar in my FB feed, I just cringe how dangerous some of those set ups are. No clearances from combustables, all kinds of jokes but zero alarm on chimney fires etc.
Sounds familiar. Lived in the family farm house built in 1859 for several years. Wood cook stove only heat source. Pipe came out of the back of the stove, made a 90, then another 90 up though ceiling hole about 1" bigger in diameter than the pipe, through the bedroom above and then though another hole up to the attic, another 90 into a brick chimney built on the attic floor. I was annul about keeping the pipe clean, figured a chimney fire would be all for that place. Never had a problem and obviously my ancestors did not either.
At the very beginning of this month the wife and I were at a holiday party and heard about a house on fire in town. Heard it was a chimney fire. On our way home the fire department was basically gone from the scene already and driving by there is no visible damage. I don’t recall ever seeing smoke coming out of the chimney, but outside of the chimney certainly looks like there is a fire place or insert on the other side. Always a cute little pile of wood on the porch, mostly decorative I think. For the last week there has been a couple different outfits working on the place. I drove by once when they were vacuuming out insulation. And they have filled 3 large roll offs with all manner of stuff. Almost looks like the place is getting completely gutted. I have also heard that the fire was caused by electric heater. Either way, stay safe and be careful.
