Thank you QuickBpBp - or, Ed becomes Dick Van Dyke

[moparedtn]

With QuickBpBp's recent reporting of his home's chimney fire, I got to thinking (as I'm sure some others did as well) that after 20 years, it might be time to check on our own chimney up here on the ridge - especially since I'd never even given it a thought in the past.

I figured, what the heck, can't be that bad, right?

Uh yeah....yeah, it can. Notice you can't even see daylight up in that thing?

Given recent financials around here, Ed was gonna be a chimney sweep, real quick like...

Well, except for the multi-millionaire actor part, of course.
(No, not so much actually, as it turned out - stay tuned).

(It should be interjected here that the wife's daughter and grandkids took off to do touristy things down towards Gatlinburg, leaving me alone at home to wrestle this chimney thing...well, me and the dog).

Weather got nice here and despite all sorts of orders that I'm not supposed to be
getting up on the roof of the house and all, I watched a couple YT videos and thought "piece of cake", got the cute brush with extension rods, shop vac, plastic sheeting and all that and set out.
(This is where you interject Morgan Freeman saying "it was at this moment - he knew - he done effed up")
I then proceeded to dang near slide off the roof a couple times (metal roofs are great and all, except for that whole "slippery" thing), scaring me good enough to remember the standing orders for me NOT to be up there.

Surrendering to my frailties, I then made arrangements for an actual chimney sweep to come on out. Real good dude, young fella with a great attitude and gung-ho spirit.
He gets out his stuff and up on the roof he goes and all is well....
until we get back inside to see the results in the fireplace and clean all that up, that is.
He fires up his shop vac and after my specifically asking if the filter for it was in place - proceeds to fill the house with a sooty fog when he fires it up.
Ed's face at that point...


Well, he's all apologetic and mortified and I just grab fans, open windows and commence to clean-up detail, not fussing.
He winds up doing a fine job and I get the place straightened up and off he goes - and we have a safe chimney - that's good.
I have a new-found darker complexion head to toe, some of which isn't scrubbing off so easy. Not so good, still haven't gotten the smell out of my head...

In the meantime, the brood still out having fun, I had gotten hungry and the cavalry wasn't coming (wife had already messaged me that I was "on my own" for dinner).
Tired, half-assed scrubbed and hungry - but still blessed with unseasonably warm weather - there was but one answer:


No, it's not much of a video, apologies there - but it had been one nasty, frustrating day and I just jumped in the GTX to fetch drive thru real quick.
When I got to the bottom of the ridge and paused to let her warm up a little, though - I had another of those little epiphanies that said "hey, grumpy - all of this ain't a bad thing, you know. Stop being resentful of the others having fun while you worked and appreciate that you're the one sitting in a GTX right now."
Yeah.
I wound up sitting there for a minute or two, just listening and looking, soaking it up.
It ain't a bad gig...

 

[moparedtn]

Oh, almost forgot - the AFTER pics of the cleaning:


Yeah, that'll work.

 

[66383]

Helluva job ed!

 

[Beekeeper]

Looks a lot better

 

[Jerry Hall]

Always nice to be able to get out for a ride after a taxing day. Great job with the chimney too.

 

[khryslerkid]

Damn Ed, you scared the crap out of me again. At least there wasn't any lack of jack stands evolved.

No way will you find me up on a roof again. I had an episode with a squirrel that came down my chimney pipe a couple of weeks ago. Came home and found the little tree rat hanging on the fireplace screen behind the glass doors.

I closed all the hallway doors, stacked some boxes across the hallway, opened the front door and the patio door and proceeded let him out. He left the house like a rocket never to come back again!

There's no screen on the top of the chimney and I'll never use this fireplace so I had my friend's son come over and place a concrete paver on top of the pipe. No way was I going up there. I'm not sure footed anymore like I was when I was younger.

I learned a technique burning wood years ago. When you first light up your stove or fireplace let it burn with a high flame (dampner wide open) for the first five minutes or so. Helps to burn out the soot from the last time you used it. Keeps the creosote buildup to a minimum. And I never burned any softwoods like Pine. Only hardwoods like Oak and Hickory.

Sure am glad you got the smarts enough to call someone before your wife came home and found you doing a headstand in your yard. Stay off roofs!

 

[Roger63]

I needed a good chuckle this morning, and I'm glad you didn't slide off the roof.

 

[moparedtn]

Lemme outta here! You gots nuthin on me, copper!

 

[hanks73340]

When we went to purchase a house a while back, we found out thru our Inspector that the owners burned tires in the fire place. There was a very thick coating of rubber soot that covered the chimney all the way up. Needless to say we(our lawyer) was able to back out of the purchase based on that issue. Some folks just don't think.......

 

[QuickBpBp]

Hey Ed, Great news. Sorry you ended up in black face for a bit(lol) and there was a mess. While I missed a serious tragedy and was extremely grateful it's why I posted. **** happens but SOMETIMES **** can be avoided from what bad things happen to others. I am glad that a few GOOD things happened from that post of mine. Possibly saved one member from having a serious fire, I agreed with SFSI and best of all 69a100 one of the posters was given a vacation from the board. The new year is looking good and I hope it is for ALL Members!!

 

[moparedtn]

Damn Ed, you scared the crap out of me again. At least there wasn't any lack of jack stands evolved.

No way will you find me up on a roof again. I had an episode with a squirrel that came down my chimney pipe a couple of weeks ago. Came home and found the little tree rat hanging on the fireplace screen behind the glass doors.
View attachment 887215

I closed all the hallway doors, stacked some boxes across the hallway, opened the front door and the patio door and proceeded let him out. He left the house like a rocket never to come back again!

There's no screen on the top of the chimney and I'll never use this fireplace so I had my friend's son come over and place a concrete paver on top of the pipe. No way was I going up there. I'm not sure footed anymore like I was when I was younger.

I learned a technique burning wood years ago. When you first light up your stove or fireplace let it burn with a high flame (dampner wide open) for the first five minutes or so. Helps to burn out the soot from the last time you used it. Keeps the creosote buildup to a minimum. And I never burned any softwoods like Pine. Only hardwoods like Oak and Hickory.

Sure am glad you got the smarts enough to call someone before your wife came home and found you doing a headstand in your yard. Stay off roofs!

Eh, there's some sort of Teflon-ish coating on this 50-year metal roofing that makes it slick.
Add on a couple years of some sort of build-up funk on it and it gets ice rink slick....
Dang yard rats.
Poor little fella must have done a header alllll the way down, landing with a thump!

Our metal stove looking top is one of those two story looking gizmos - the main lid covers the 8" center duct and another, lower ring covers the approx. 12" "liner" duct that surrounds the 8" one. All exposed has a heavy metal grating to keep critters out and it's in (thankfully) great shape.
I had a good look at it before the forces of gravity tried to expediently expel me from the roof.

The damper itself on the fireplace insert has two positions, open or closed - no graduations between.
That's probably for the best, given that it's not a full sized insert (small wood only).
I always burn a Duraflame log first in the evening, then use it a couple hours later to get some real wood burning.
No, not the most economical way - but I got tired a long time ago of starting a fire other ways.

The other good news from the whole thing was no sign of damage to the whole apparatus and all the soot came off
easily and was very dry, not sticky. I don't (knowingly) burn sappy woods, either.
Wonder if that Duraflame leaves any sort of gunk as it burns?

 

[moparedtn]

Hey Ed, Great news. Sorry you ended up in black face for a bit(lol) and there was a mess. While I missed a serious tragedy and was extremely grateful it's why I posted. **** happens but SOMETIMES **** can be avoided from what bad things happen to others. I am glad that a few GOOD things happened from that post of mine. Possibly saved one member from having a serious fire, I agreed with SFSI and best of all 69a100 one of the posters was given a vacation from the board. The new year is looking good and I hope it is for ALL Members!!

Amen, brother. Thanks again for posting your story; you may well have helped me avoid a similar fate!
Yep, I was doing my Al Jolson impersonation there for a bit.

 

[Cranky]

Must have done something right with mine because it's only been cleaned once in 35 years and didn't seem to need it even at that!! It does get inspected every year before lighting it up but haven't even been using it much. Only burned it a few times last year and so far not this winter either. Don't even have any wood stacked up and even sold the racks last winter. It is a fully bricked out fireplace and the chimney is big enough for a person to go down it. The only thing keeping a person from doing that is the damper. Imo, the only flaw is that the top of the chimney isn't as high as the peak of the roof so whenever the wind is out of the north and is above 10 mph (usually is in the winter doh), smoke will come into the house if the fire isn't burning good. Anyways, this pic is similar to mine except the chimney pipe on mine is rectangular.....

 

[moparedtn]

A building trade guy or inspector can chime in here, but I believe it's Code to have chimneys be taller
than the roof peak these days, isn't it?
I was very pleased to see our rooftop portion be built like it is, double spark arrestors and all and to see
it be of sufficient height as well. As a nice aside, a bonus of our having the roof changed over to all metal
decking is a fire resistance that comes with that, too.

All part of my "don't leave a mess for my wife" plan, all these projects. Another one crossed off the list.

 

[QuickBpBp]

A building trade guy or inspector can chime in here, but I believe it's Code to have chimneys be taller
than the roof peak these days, isn't it?
I was very pleased to see our rooftop portion be built like it is, double spark arrestors and all and to see
it be of sufficient height as well. As a nice aside, a bonus of our having the roof changed over to all metal
decking is a fire resistance that comes with that, too.

All part of my "don't leave a mess for my wife" plan, all these projects. Another one crossed off the list.

I believe so. My neighbor just put an addition on and the chimney is now about 1 1/2 feet below the peak... I don't think it's legal by any means..

 

[CudaChick1968]

Great story!!!

 

[coloradodave]

National code: 2' higher than anything within 10' for woodburning fireplaces and stoves. 30 years in the business.

 

[69a100]

and best of all 69a100 one of the posters was given a vacation from the board. The new year is looking good and I hope it is for ALL Members!!

HEY! My vacation's over, and yes the new year is lookin good for me too!

 

[Cranky]

A building trade guy or inspector can chime in here, but I believe it's Code to have chimneys be taller
than the roof peak these days, isn't it?
I was very pleased to see our rooftop portion be built like it is, double spark arrestors and all and to see
it be of sufficient height as well. As a nice aside, a bonus of our having the roof changed over to all metal
decking is a fire resistance that comes with that, too.

All part of my "don't leave a mess for my wife" plan, all these projects. Another one crossed off the list.

my house was built in 1976 and have no idea what the code was back then but I just know my fireplace does not work very well with a North Wind and that sucks unless the fire is going really well.

 

[moparedtn]

my house was built in 1976 and have no idea what the code was back then but I just know my fireplace does not work very well with a North Wind and that sucks unless the fire is going really well.

Wonder if a weather cap would help with that?