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| A roaring fire burns for the first time in our cast iron wood stove. |
We obtained this cast iron wood stove quite a few years ago, but have never had an area or need for it until recently. It's been stored away in a dark corner of an outbuilding providing an excellent home for a myriad of spiders and their progeny. Before even thinking of installing the stove indoors, the hubby set the 'tootsie toaster' on the driveway, evicted all the wildlife then cleaned it up inside & out. He attached a short length of flue pipe (about 3 feet) and filled her belly with kindling and small logs for the first burn test.
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| Smoke exiting the flue pipe of the wood stove. |
Before you know it I smelled the wood smoke as it curled out the flue. Ahh, talk about the "warm fuzzies". But we're not finished by any means. There's more to this stove testing - you didn't think it was going to be that easy did you? Darling hubby placed a small sheet of metal over the opening of the flue pipe to block the smoke. This, of course, will trap the smoke and would show if there were any cracks or open seams on the body of the stove...which is not a good thing.
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| Smoke escaping from seams on front and rear of stove body. |
Well there you have it, smoke came pouring out around the front and rear bulkheads of the stove. Now this wasn't a brand new stove when we bought it years ago, so we weren't really surprised to make this discovery. All is not lost - we'll be making a trip to our local Tractor Supply store to buy some fiberglass rope gasket & the cement to glue it in place. No biggie - it's about $10 and hopefully that's all we'll need. Of course we'll have to do another burn test in the driveway before the stove gets to move indoors to its new home.
We have a much larger wood stove already in the house that we've been using since we moved here. Every autumn DH gets out his extension ladder, dons his top hat and with chimney brush in hand climbs to the roof of the house and thoroughly reams the flue pipe and inspects for any signs of wear. (Do you have an odd mental picture of my husband on the roof right now?) If you aren't able to do this yourself, you MUST have someone do it for you. This is NOT OPTIONAL. Creosote builds up on the inner walls of the flue pipe and if not removed will build to the point where it can and will catch fire. It happens hundreds of times in this country every year resulting not only in great financial loss, but...well, you know where this is going.
A good way to slow down the buildup of creosote is to use only seasoned hard woods in your stove or fireplace...for example: oak or walnut. (seasoned means dried outdoors, btw) If you buy your firewood from a dealer (which includes the farmer's son down the road) just tell him you want "hard wood". Pine, a soft wood, is not recommended for use in stoves/fireplaces as it is a soft wood (burns really fast) and produces a lot of creosote from the oils in the wood. It's alright to use a little pine as kindling to get your cozy fire started, but beyond that avoid it by all means. You'll just have to use candles or air fresheners if you want that Christmasy scent in your home. Better yet, just bake some cookies.
Hopefully I'll return with a follow up on our stove installation once the improvements have been made. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
