March 15, 2003

• There!
  That wasn’t so bad….

  
  

  The Problem:
  Putting a cap on my new stovepipe to keep rain and snow out of my woodstove was a big mistake… maybe.  Instead of the creosote condensing inside the pipe, coating and clogging it as it had before I replaced the pipe last fall, now it condensed on the cap and dripped down the outside of the pipe.

  
  

  The old way, it clogs faster, but with less mess.  With the cap on there, we went almost the entire winter without having to climb up there and clean the stovepipe.

  
  

  The Solution…

  
  

  Well, that pretty much took care of itself.  Apparently, creosote eats the galvanized metal the cap was made of.  It came apart in my hands as I tried to remove it to clear the clogged pipe.

  
  

  Then I discovered, when I rammed the Mutt® (that ice chipping tool Doug is leaning on) into the clog, that the pipe was blocked only at the very top.  Some of the condensed creosote had fallen off the inside of the cap and blocked the outlet.  I broke most of it off with my fingers and got rid of it.  Then I took a few more pictures and we climbed back down.

  
  

  

  
  

  That’s the icy muskeg across the street.

  
  

  I learned a few things from today’s trip to the roof.

  
  

  One:  Charley was right.  He has told me for years that those caps on stovepipes are more trouble than they are worth.

  
  

  

  
  

  The nearly horizontal faint white line, beyond the trees in the shot at right, is the road out to the cul de sac, where I go to take a lot of the pictures I’ve posted here.

  
  

  Another thing I learned today is that Shop-Vacs® are tough.  Doug dropped ours off the roof.  It bounced a few times, skittered across the ice, and still functioned when he retrieved it.

  
  

  

  
  

  That’s my good buddy Koji in the yard, wondering what I’m doing on the roof.  He is standing on a sheet of ice about six inches thick, which has a lot of dirt and debris drifted here and there on it, from the recent windstorms.

  
  

  One nice result of that night and day of really strong winds:  the plastic shopping bags that had gotten hung up in the trees by the weeks of milder winds preceding the major storm were torn apart and blown away.

  
  

  As Greyfox says with a chuckle:  “It’s an ill wind….”

  Here’s an even better illustration of the icy yard and windblown debris:

  
  

  The cement blocks are embedded in solid ice.  None of the pictures I took had the right sun-angle to catch the gleam and glisten of the slick surface.

  
  

  Take my word for it:  the ice is both slick and shiny.  It is also littered with numerous parts of many trees.  None of the trees in our yard was flattened, and I haven’t been out in the woods yet to see if any of our neighborhood trees fell to the wind.  But I’ve heard stories….

  

  
  

  And here, in lieu of welcome mat, are my two favorite male critters in the whole world.

  
  

  Come on in.  We’ll try to clear a spot somewhere for you to sit down.

  
  

  The fire is warm today, and now smokeless, too.

  
  

  There’s a fresh pot of coffee, as well.  I made it right after I got the fire going when we came in off the roof.

  
  

  Welcome.

  
  

  

  • 6:56 pm
  • 8 Comments