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Can someone explain to me the physics behind this? (woodstove)

woods said:
Wood has been covered and was split and stacked 2019.
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so then you probably just had it closed up real tight and starved for oxygen.
Do you monitor flue temp?

anyway, you introduced oxygen into a bunch of wood gas and your shit popped.
make sure that you open the flue and vent all the way for a minute before you pop the door or ash pan.
keeps shit from happenng.
 
87manche said:
anyway, you introduced oxygen into a bunch of wood gas and your shit popped.
make sure that you open the flue and vent all the way for a minute before you pop the door or ash pan.
keeps shit from happenng.
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+1
 
I’ve had chimney fires in my old shop wood furnace. My flue pipe was single wall SS pipe. I’d toss in greenish wood at the end of the day for a slow burn all night then in the morning load it up with dry wood. Over time I would end up catching the flue on fire which I would do intentionally to clear it out. It is the sound of a freight train rolling by for sure and the entire SS pipe would be glowing red hot. There is nothing for it to catch on fire. But over time the wood furnace steel box walls developed cracks in it. I’d weld them up which was a pita but it would crack again. Can’t control the fire very well when it’s drawing air through the cracks.

i ended up scrapping the furnace and got a used fire chief outside wood furnace. I’m a bit late in the year but I’m still hooking it up. Working on the forced air duct work and wiring on it now. Should have it up and running over this weekend. This thing handles longer logs then my old inside furnace did. I know I’ll lose some heating with it as the inside furnace body put off heat that stayed in my shop.

I’ve never lived in a house with a fire wood burning fire place, only the gas insert fire place. I’d love to have one but I doubt I’ll ever build one.
 
Welding up cracks in a flue seems like a great way to burn your house down. If it got hot enough to crack from a fire the stress and brittleness induced by a welder can’t be good for it.:homer:
 
Pony_Driver said:
Welding up cracks in a flue seems like a great way to burn your house down. If it got hot enough to crack from a fire the stress and brittleness induced by a welder can’t be good for it.:homer:
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you should prob re read that there post, bud
 
Spontaneous combustion. You experienced spontaneous combustion.


maybe it's already answered, Iduno :flipoff2:


Gasses built up whist the lame igintion source was trying to flourish into a flame. Once the flame catches...boom. The gasses spontaneously ignite all at once.
 
Just had lunch with my folks. Dad's a retired firefighter after 37 years.

Fire needs three things. Fuel. Oxygen. Heat. You had the fuel. You had the heat. You introduced a shit ton of oxygen. That's yer problem.

:homer:
 
[486 said:
;n250907]
you should prob re read that there post, bud
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I’ll stand by it. Landslide said he welded up cracks that formed in a SS flue. Welding it back together and it getting head cycled seems like a recipe for disaster. The metal was fatigued to begin with. If I am wrong please explain it to me.
 
Pony_Driver said:
I’ll stand by it. Landslide said he welded up cracks that formed in a SS flue. Welding it back together and it getting head cycled seems like a recipe for disaster. The metal was fatigued to begin with. If I am wrong please explain it to me.
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I admire the dedication but I think he got you on this one. :laughing:

Landslide said:
But over time the wood furnace steel box walls developed cracks in it. I’d weld them up which was a pita but it would crack again. Can’t control the fire very well when it’s drawing air through the cracks.
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Doesn't smoke itself ignite also? So if you have smoldering wood in there that has not caught yet, but is putting out smoke, then it can accumulate and finally catch?

Anyway, never let the temp get below 300.
 
Coal does that a lot easier. I learned early burning it in the house when you load the fire at night don't cover all the coals and make the flame go out.
It was funny the first few times, load the stove up, turn the damper down and a minute or so later "thud" and the fire would take off. Then one night the "thud" was a little louder and it blew the pipe off the wall and all the dark black coal smoke started to fill the house as I was trying to scamper to get the pipes all back in place.
I've only had wood do it a few times, coal you can make do it like clockwork.
This thread reminds me that I don't miss that mess in the house and am glad to have the outdoor boiler.
​​​
 
I do like the brevity brought by dropping unnecessary words, but it just makes me feel like a stupid fucking russian whenever I talk like that.
 
kc8ksg said:
Coal does that a lot easier. I learned early burning it in the house when you load the fire at night don't cover all the coals and make the flame go out.
It was funny the first few times, load the stove up, turn the damper down and a minute or so later "thud" and the fire would take off. Then one night the "thud" was a little louder and it blew the pipe off the wall and all the dark black coal smoke started to fill the house as I was trying to scamper to get the pipes all back in place.
I've only had wood do it a few times, coal you can make do it like clockwork.
This thread reminds me that I don't miss that mess in the house and am glad to have the outdoor boiler.
​​​
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Yep. Definitely an order of operations thing with a coal stove.

Bonus points for having the ash door open, with the tray full of well-burned coal ash when it happens. Powdered my whole fucking living room in coal ash after it all blew out. Learned that lesson quickly.
 
arse_sidewards said:
I admire the dedication but I think he got you on this one. :laughing:
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Eh, fuckit. I was on my phone. I reread MY post, not Landslides. My bad. Furthermore, if you have a SS flue and it cracks from age and use, don't weld it back up, that's a safety hazard. :flipoff2:
 
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vetteboy79 said:
Yep. Definitely an order of operations thing with a coal stove.

Bonus points for having the ash door open, with the tray full of well-burned coal ash when it happens. Powdered my whole fucking living room in coal ash after it all blew out. Learned that lesson quickly.
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Not my proudest moment....was a rainy day and was having trouble getting my coal stove going. I squirted some gel fire starter type stuff in there and lit it. Boom, my living room was showered with hot coals, ash and flaming gel balls. On carpet. :lmao:
 
It wasn't adding the air that made it go boom, it was cutting it off on a fire that had started. That sets up a backdraft, and the oxygen that makes it go boom actually comes down the chimney. The hot air rising from the fire you started goes up the chimney but since you cut off the air inlet, the replacement air gets pulled down the chimney around the rising hot smoke and mixes with the flammable wood gas coming off the hot coals on the way down. When you get to the right ratio at the embers, boom.

I grew up with a Temp-wood stove, sealed welded metal box toploader design. You could shut the air inlet completely off if you wanted, but that was a bad idea because 15mins later it would blow the lid up with a bang and fill the room with smoke! So you learn to throttle the fire down slowly instead of cutting it off suddenly. I've collected a few of the TempWoods and gave one to a friend for his house. I warned him about the backdraft, but he didn't warn his wife. She had it go boom and was all freaked out, called him up and he was like Oh, yeah, he said that would happen if you shut the air down too quick.

Modern stoves have minimum air settings to keep the fire from burning too cold and smoky but it also helps prevent backdrafts.
 
Pony_Driver said:
I’ll stand by it. Landslide said he welded up cracks that formed in a SS flue. Welding it back together and it getting head cycled seems like a recipe for disaster. The metal was fatigued to begin with. If I am wrong please explain it to me.
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Dyam, I didn’t think reading comprehension was so difficult for you. I never, repeat, never had any issue with my SS flue pipe. It was not, I repeat, was not in my house, it was in my shop which is mostly steal.

one thing I learned from the flue fires I had in it was it would be scary as shit to have it happen in a house. :eek:

at the farm we have an old wood burning stove we use to heat up the old mid 1800’s house. Only heat source there. No one lives in the place until deer season or weekend activities. From the stove is the black metal flue pipe up then 90* into the house chimney. We clean it out once in a while but not every year. I make dam sure the batteries are fresh in the smoke detectors. There are two windows ground level in the room I sleep in and I have an exit plan when one goes off. Place is a tinder box and it’ll go up in a hurry.
 
Pony_Driver said:
I’ll stand by it. Landslide said he welded up cracks that formed in a SS flue. Welding it back together and it getting head cycled seems like a recipe for disaster. The metal was fatigued to begin with. If I am wrong please explain it to me.
Click to expand...

Dyam, I didn’t think reading comprehension was so difficult for you. I never, repeat, never had any issue with my SS flue pipe. It was not, I repeat, was not in my house, it was in my shop which is mostly steal.

one thing I learned from the flue fires I had in it was it would be scary as shit to have it happen in a house. :eek:

at the farm we have an old wood burning stove we use to heat up the old mid 1800’s house. Only heat source there. No one lives in the place until deer season or weekend activities. From the stove is the black metal flue pipe up then 90* into the house chimney. We clean it out once in a while but not every year. I make dam sure the batteries are fresh in the smoke detectors. There are two windows ground level in the room I sleep in and I have an exit plan when one goes off. Place is a tinder box and it’ll go up in a hurry.
 
Landslide said:
Dyam, I didn’t think reading comprehension was so difficult for you. I never, repeat, never had any issue with my SS flue pipe. It was not, I repeat, was not in my house, it was in my shop which is mostly steal.

one thing I learned from the flue fires I had in it was it would be scary as shit to have it happen in a house. :eek:

at the farm we have an old wood burning stove we use to heat up the old mid 1800’s house. Only heat source there. No one lives in the place until deer season or weekend activities. From the stove is the black metal flue pipe up then 90* into the house chimney. We clean it out once in a while but not every year. I make dam sure the batteries are fresh in the smoke detectors. There are two windows ground level in the room I sleep in and I have an exit plan when one goes off. Place is a tinder box and it’ll go up in a hurry.
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Catch up, I re-read my post not yours and didn't catch the mistake until I got home and wasn't on my phone. See post #48 for my admission of a mistake. Fucker. :flipoff2:
 
What you experienced is essentially a backdraft, but focused into a narrow exhaust, thus the violent pop.

Everything is superheated and you introduce new oxygen in abundance. Ding Ting Pow Sum Ting Wong Bing Bow Boom.
 
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