Does anyone have any experience with or a semi-informed about chimfex? I am wondering if it would be good to have around. www.chimfex.us
No experience with it , and did not know it existed until this post. I will be ordering one momentarily.
I just bought 2 on Amazon Thanks for posting, I don't worry about a chimney fire but I have relatives who I do worry about.
I probably will be buying a couple. I am not worried about a chimney fire, but there are other imaginable scenarios where it would be desirable to "instantaneously" shut the fire down. It is cheap enough that it seems silly to not have them.
walt mentioned using something like this from his firefighting days, but I didn't know where to get one. Thanks for the link Greg!
Never had a chimney fire but like someone else said it's worth having around. I keep mine in the stove room as a precaution.
I really should look into getting a box of those for peace of mind. Probably wouldn't need them as I clean my chimney too much and kick the fire every day, but still good to have as part of the fire prevention plan.
I cant remember where I picked it up but it was probably walmart. Just like the other things I have for safety that I hope to never use like my bailing bucket or tow rope in my boat, or the ice picks I wear around my neck when fishing on sketchy ice, or the transceiver I used to wear when skiing the back country, etc, etc.
There's an interesting snippet about metal fever? (potentially)? from the fumes. I think that's what they're referring to, so if you have breathing issues or even if you don't, it's good to know to avoid the smoke coming off of it. I guess if you think your home is about to go up in a blazing inferno, a few days sick is definitely worth it anyways.
I havent seen that before so it was good to see. Thanks for posting. It started sounding a bit like a commercial for a drug that is bad for you like youd see on SNL but the rest of it was good. Im going to share it with my wife so she knows what its all about. I might move it a bit further from the stove....
It wasn't too bad. Caught it before it got out of hand. Few years back had some wood that was not fully seasoned...deposited more creosote than I thought it would. Got a very windy day...I begin to hear a growling/whooshing noise coming from downstairs, run down to check on things and see that the pipe on the stove was glowing. Didn't need to do a visual check to tell that the chimney was ablaze. Closed all air & damper down, chucked the Chimfex in the stove and stood monitoring with extinguisher in hand. After about 30 seconds, it began to calm down, eventually tuning into a smoldery mess. Kept everything shut down, kicked the gas furnace on and continued to check on it throughout the day. Stove was cold the next morning when I got up, so I started cleaning. Took everything out of the firebox and then removed as much of the ashes as I could get out. Climbed the roof and gave the chimney a good swabbing, cleaned the chimney pipe on the stove, cleared the flue of loose creosote (it was a weird brownish color) and built a new fire with some drier wood I had and all was well. It is a quite scary thing to happen. I was very glad I had the Chimfex on hand and there is always one near my stove beside the fire extinguisher. I was prepared to hit the stove with the extinguisher, but was aware of the mess it would create. If the Chimfex had taken another 30 seconds, I would've probably called the FD. I have become extra diligent on windy days since then.
