Rose Cottage Ltd

In two words or less, burn pine.

I worked really hard for the last few weeks to get enough wood chopped to get through the coming ice storm of January 25th and the Winter 2013 in general. I’d had someone do the chainsaw part of several large trees so all I had to do was chop and haul the wood to the outside stand and get it under cover.

One of the downed trees – which was so dead it had no remaining bark – was apparently pine. I’m no wood grain expert so all I needed to know was that I could split it without too much trouble. And when I burned this particular wood in the wood stove for a day or two – it really put out some massive heat. Good, right?

Wrong.

I started a fire this past Saturday mid-day to find – some 15 minutes later – that the interior of the stove was full of smoke. I checked the cap outside on the roof and sure enough smoke was coming out there too. But apparently not as intended. As it built up in the stove it began seeping out of one of the interior pipes – filling the house with smoke.

Fortunately, I was able to play Junior Fire Brigade, toss some water into the stove and get the fire out. It wasn’t burning that well anyway – mainly smoldering. I had a look outside and the cap and vent area seemed black and full of well, crap. Fortunately, the State of North Carolina sent me a 70 degree day today so up on the roof I went. Sure enough, the cap and the wire mesh basket inside the cap were nearly 100% blocked with what I gather is creosote from the dratted pine!

The good news is that the pipe/stack for the stove is on a fairly shallow roof since I’m not great with heights. I also have the chimney brush to clean the pipe and had removed the cap for cleaning once before. Here’s how it looked after about 20 minutes of scouring with a Brillo pad:

I wish I had taken a “before” picture but I can tell you that you could not see the wire basket nor could you see light through it. It was totally blocked. I’m not sure how any smoke was getting out.

So the moral of this story is #1, don’t burn pine and #2, get better about identifying wood grain.

I expect to have another wood stove moment here before the coming weekend. Fingers will be crossed that I’ve gotten enough out of the chimney pipe and have cleaned the cap well enough to not have any further issues. Although it is a lot of work, I miss my little stove when I can’t use it.