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Rudely woken by the CO Alarm


Jennifer McM

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2 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Well the density of air at sea level is given as 1.225kg/m3 and Carbon Monoxide is 1.14 kg/m3 

Have i got that the wrong way round? I know one suggestion is to mount them at head height (sleeping), and perhaps wrongly assumed that it collected at low levels..

Most happy to be corrected. 

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It could take some shifting if its set like solid cement. An ordinary bristle brush won't do much  If its a straight fluepipe you could like I had to do last January was to flatten the end of a length of 3/4'' steel water barrel pipe and drill through it from the top by turning it with Stilsons, once it broke through it mostly all broke away in big chunks into the stove.

Once its broken through bend the flattened end of the pipe a little and keep running it up and down the fluepipe to clear the rest. Keep the stove door closed whilst doing it.

Edited by bizzard
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27 minutes ago, BWM said:

 

CO being heavier than air will move downhill and begin to collect at the lowest point. 

It is CO2 that is heavier than air. CO and CO2 get confused a lot, by me too sometimes. As @ditchcrawler says CO is lighter than air and will pool close to the ceiling, which is why the alarm destruction manuals say to put it near there.

 

Jen

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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21 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Looks like you've been bunging on wet or damp coal-smokeless fuel. The moisture mixes with the binding material and turns into a cementhard like stuff instead of just loose soot. If you keep  the stove burning bright and hot it wouldn't matter, but I daresay, like most folk it just ticks over gently most of the time especially at night which can cause it.  When smokeless fuel is perfectly dry it is a sort of dark grey colour.  If it looks jet black its wet or damp.

Exactly that. Nearly all the bags (kept in the cratch, under a cratch cover) when first opened the top layers of coal are sodden wet, I thought it was condensation. We burn a coal scuttle full of coal a day, scuttle is filled in the morning, and kept by the fire. The coal nuts become dryer, but still not fully dry. 

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13 minutes ago, bizzard said:

It could take some shifting if its set like solid cement. An ordinary bristle brush won't do much  If its a straight fluepipe you could like I had to do last January was to flatten the end of a length of 3/4'' steel water barrel pipe and drill through it from the top by turning it with Stilsons, once it broke through it mostly all broke away in big chunks into the stove.

Once its broken through bend the flattened end of the pipe a little and keep running it up and down the fluepipe to clear the rest. Keep the stove door closed whilst doing it.

Yes I think it did, there was big bottle brush, a hook to scratch the stuff, and a chain that beat the inner sides of the flue involved. That's a good idea about the water barrel, I'll pass that on to 'him that does'.

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1 minute ago, Jennifer McM said:

Exactly that. Nearly all the bags (kept in the cratch, under a cratch cover) when first opened the top layers of coal are sodden wet, I thought it was condensation. We burn a coal scuttle full of coal a day, scuttle is filled in the morning, and kept by the fire. The coal nuts become dryer, but still not fully dry. 

Probably bagged wet. Merchants store it in bulk, loose in open to the weather staithes.

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1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:

I watched a chap sweeping his chimney while the fire was alight. He stood on the roof, dipped the brush in the water and rammed it down the chimney, he did have the boat door open at the time. That way he could do it every week.

Interesting idea, but not sure how he'd get the stuff off the baffle top without putting the fire out. Maybe we've got a different type?

 

I took this picture before the inside of the fire was dismantled. We've had problems in the past figuring out which way the baffle fits. ??

 

fire.jpg.b26024b8f282cb9d966efe7d7b8b7327.jpg

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It helps if the fuel is not perfectly dry when fed onto the fire is to twice a week get the stove roaring really tremendousely hot for half an hour which should burn off most of the gunge and soot in the flue.  I believe Morso recomend this performance.

Edited by bizzard
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26 minutes ago, bizzard said:

It helps if the fuel is not perfectly dry when fed onto the fire is to twice a week get the stove roaring really tremendousely hot for half an hour which should burn off most of the gunge and soot in the flue.  I believe Morso recomend this performance.

This could explain why I only get 2-3mm of deposit in a year.

My modus operandi twice a day is to burn the fire up, empty the ash, rake out the stove leaving only red embers, fill to the max and burn up again, C says to much, then shut it down for 12hours. Its worked for me for years on a few different types of stoves both in the boat and the cottage. I never put fuel on without giving it a good burn.

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16 minutes ago, Loddon said:

This could explain why I only get 2-3mm of deposit in a year.

My modus operandi twice a day is to burn the fire up, empty the ash, rake out the stove leaving only red embers, fill to the max and burn up again, C says to much, then shut it down for 12hours. Its worked for me for years on a few different types of stoves both in the boat and the cottage. I never put fuel on without giving it a good burn.

Agree with all this. Running these stoves hard, with dry fuel is the way to keep the flue free of clag. I've just used an old bit of scaffold pole to knock out the concrete like stuff that has formed with the weather being so mild and the stove ticking over 24/7.

 

Jen

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

I watched a chap sweeping his chimney while the fire was alight. He stood on the roof, dipped the brush in the water and rammed it down the chimney, he did have the boat door open at the time. That way he could do it every week.

I do mine when the fires low after I get back from work, use a welders glove to lift the baffle plate up to shake clean, quick and easy done about once a month

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16 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I do mine when the fires low after I get back from work, use a welders glove to lift the baffle plate up to shake clean, quick and easy done about once a month

Welder's gloves now on the shopping list! ?

Edited by Jennifer McM
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On 08/01/2019 at 11:17, Boater Sam said:

"H" top stops downdraughts but looks daft.

Spinning pigeon on top stops spinning after a while then its worse than nothing.

I've posted praise for H cowl before, no ingress of rain, not effected by down draught and unaffected by wind causing fire to overdrawn 

H cowl very common on fishing vessels and they have plenty of wind to cope with 

Phil

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  • 1 year later...
9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I wonder when the first Chinaman's hat appeared on a Narrowboat, I always assumed it was a modern leisure boat invention but it seems I was wrong 

I was told that the working boatmen used the chimney as a step when climbing off when rising in a lock so they had no "hat"

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