Chimney deaths.
 

Saw on the news today, two dead in Ronda, cause believed poor combustion in a stove.

This usually happens because people don't get their chimneys swept.

The real danger signs are when the inside of the stove tars up, and smoke comes back into the room.



You ignore that at your peril.



Physical signs are a bit less obvious, as mild CO poisoning gives the same persistant symptoms as mild flu, but if you get savage headaches, start to worry unless you fancy observing a body bag from the inside.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Just thought rather too many people might ignore this...

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

I would say any one either with, or contemplating having a stove installation do some research for them selves and don't trust what any body, even the so called professional tell you.

Fitting it the same way as everybody else does NOT make it right or safe.

This really is serious, these stoves are a red hot furnace standing in your lounge, they also give off fumes that can and do kill as reported here.

It's your families life at stake.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

The sad thing is, it is quite easy to spot when you have a problem. You open the door, and smoke comes into the room. I don't mean a puff of smoke as you open it, but sustained smoking into the room.

If there is something amiss with the installation, a good sweep should be able to advise you as to what is wrong, and probably a way of rectifying the problem.

I was once involved in the CO safety group in the UK, but the trouble was that every professional group involved bar the sweeps focussed on ventilation, servicing of the appliance and monoxide detectors.

Silly to ignore sweeping like they did, because no matter what else you do, if the flue is obstructed, where are the fumes going to go?

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

The problem is in finding a chimney sweep.
I've been trying to find one for months.
Nobody I have spoken to has ever had their chimney swept, so sweeps don't exist is the feeling I get.
Everyone just uses the stuff you sprinkle on to the fire.
Searching around on google.es does not throw any results up within around 300kms,
and there is none listed in the yellow pages. :huh:

If anyone knows of one within the Seville province, please let me know.:)

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Sorry, I'm a bit far away from you, and the call out might make your eyes water.

If you want the gear, and you have a stove, my suggestion would be order some from the UK. For a stove, I'd use Wakefield spindizzy brushes, 6" diameter ask for them as short as poss, and the best rods would be the 3/4" diam 3' blue Bailey's rods. You'd need to get a universal adaptor to connect the rod to the brush, and check to see whether or not 6" is the right diam.

That wouldn't cost a lot.

Another alternative would be to drop a weighted line down from the top, tie a small light ball of chicken mesh to it, and pull it up. Tie a line to it before pulling up so that you can pull it down if there's a problem.

That's pretty crude, but it will work, just make sure that the wire mesh ball is very loose and won't jam.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Thanks for the advice bil

I found this kit. What do you reckon, any good?



http://www.itrisa.com/ACCESORIOS/acc....asp?IDPROD=53

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

I am a chimney sweep from Switzerland I living in Denia
(SNIP)
regards
Moses

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

No probs. I can't tell what diam the rods are, all that matters there is that they aren't too stiff to go round any bends.

The brush is a bit harsh, as in the profession we don't like wire brushes as they wear the inside of the flue. Generally we prefer polyprop bristle. Also, for a 6 inc flue (which most stoves have) you want an 8 inch diam brush. 8 is far too big, will not clean as well and can cause damage.

Finally, if you can, take the throat plate out, shut down the stove and cover it with a sheet before sweeping down from the top. If you have to sweep from the bottom, progress gradually, keep the sheet over the whole appliance to minimise soot escape.

Leave the soot in the stove and burn it off with the next fire. Don't ever hoover the stuff up unless you have a good quality paper filter in there that you bin straight after.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

It's the chimneys' families I feel sorry for.

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And if I'm not mistaken I have used you myself :-)

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They do a nylon brush that is a couple of euros cheaper.
I'll go for that one then.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Thanks for all this important advice, I will ask my husband to sweep it. Our flue pipe will disconnect quite easily as it is just straight up through a hole in the roof so he can take it apart, sweep it and put it back together again.

We do have a CO detector as well.

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I am a chimney sweep but I am in Bulgaria! :D

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Are the Bulgarian sweeps members of the European Federation of Master Sweeps?

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:rofl: I very much doubt theve ever heard of that !!! lol

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Fair enuff. We were members in the UK. It was very interesting to meet sweeps from all over, and a bit sad to see how far we were behind the Germans. As you'd expect, there 'You Will have zer chimney svept', but equally they don't suffer much from monoxide poisining either.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Do you think the smoke like chimney cleaner like Leroy Merlin sells works.

We have tried it but couldnt say whether it works or not. It is a real concern when you light the open fire every day during the winter months.

No sweeps here either.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Hi there, you definatly still need to sweep the chimney;) regardless just to make sure its not blocked, so that can be your first job this spring when you no longer have to have your fire on every day? if there is no sweeps in your area, look on Ebay and buy a set of brushes with rods, the rods are bendable and extendable, hope this helps you need to stay safe.x:)

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Yep, those chems are dubious at best. In 30 years, I never came across one that I could honestly say did what it was supposed to, and some that actually made things worse.

Sweeping is all.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Been listening to you Bil! Yesterday I drilled holes under my front balcony window and added a pair of ventilation grilles. As we're building more interior walls, the area where our stove is had become a bit of a dead spot air-flow wise. keep up the good work!

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Thanks for the kind words.

Be careful where you put the ventilation holes, least you get an artic blast into the room.

It will sound silly, but there is a device in the UK called a draught master, that goes in the wall high up, and introduces a blade of cold air that fans across the ceiling. Normally introducing cold air high up would cause a turrent of cold air to fall on you which is most unpleasant. This however exploits some nifty physics. The fan of cold air sticks to the ceiling and presses the warm air down, which makes you fee warmer instantly. It warms up fast, being sandwiched between the warm air and the warm ceiling. Finally when it does fall, it falls in a way described (I think) as a Rayleigh discontinuity. Instead of falling as a torrent, it falls in small clusters like autumn leaves falling.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

We've been listening too! We've made sure we have enough ventilation and are going to put a CO alarm in the room where the woodburner lives (our existing one is near the gas water heater and the room where we use the calor gas fire).

Downstairs we have a calor gas cooker, but the builder made a hole of drainpipe size in the wall near the floor by the front door especially for the purpose of ventilation. It is covered with wire mesh on both sides, but is otherwise open. There is also an open chimney in this room.

Ordering my CO alarm at this minute!

Thanks again for this useful information.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

With CO alarms, be careful. The cheap ones are sometimes worthless, and pay careful attention to where you should situate them.

I think you need to treat it as a heavier than air mixture, but check the wording on the packet.

With the level of ventilation you have, you are far less likely to need an alarm than people who desperately try to seal the room in order to conserve heat.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Thanks yes.

Our last CO Alarm came with instructions to mount it at eye level and also gave instructions of where to site it in relation to the source of combustion in the room. It does work Ok, (as evidenced by the racket it kicked up when the wind blew the calientador fumes in its direction:rofl:).

This new one I have ordered is the same model but is for a different room.

We do have enough ventilation I'm sure (old house with loads of draughts!) but thought it was better to be safe than sorry. We also have six smoke alarms (at least one on each floor and in the bedrooms).

In our UK house we have four smoke alarms and two CO alarms, and also a fire blanket and fire extinguisher in the kitchen and a fire escape ladder for the attic room. The bedroom windows open very wide (one of them onto a flat roof) so that people can get out. I don't want my son, his girlfriend and the lodger burning or suffocating in their beds! :)


This is the CO alarm I have ordered:

http://www.safelincs.co.uk/Carbon-Mo...idde-900-0259/

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

That looks like a reasonable spec one. I'm impressed with your precautions. Were everyone in the uK half as cautious, there would probably be no monoxide deaths.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

One observation, one question. Though lacking the CO alarms, we actually had similar smoke alarm coverage in our (old, three-storey, largely timbered) house in the UK up to and including fire blanket, extinguishers on every level and axe/ladder in the attic. At the moment given we only have a fire in one room of the house, and that room (well mentioned in previous threads about lack of heating!!!) has a double front door, two doorless arches, two windows and a windowless gap between rooms, I hope I'm not being flip when I say I doubt there's not too much chance of CO poisoning.
However. In the kitchen we have a calor oven and were advised to put a drainpipe sized hole in the wall at floor level with unsealable vent cover thingies. (there is a vent above the cooker, not a proper hood) We haven't yet done so because of the thickness of the wall and the draughts in the house. Just HOW dodgy is our thinking?

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

See my post above! here is a copy

We've been listening too! We've made sure we have enough ventilation and are going to put a CO alarm in the room where the woodburner lives (our existing one is near the gas water heater and the room where we use the calor gas fire).

Downstairs we have a calor gas cooker, but the builder made a hole of drainpipe size in the wall near the floor by the front door especially for the purpose of ventilation. It is covered with wire mesh on both sides, but is otherwise open. There is also an open chimney in this room.

Ordering my CO alarm at this minute!

Apparently we would not have been given our gas contract without it.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Thanks for that! My husband thinks I'm a bit over the top about it, but goes along with it and installs all the alarms for me.:)

My friend (who hasn't got any sort of alarm anywhere in the house), thinks I'm totally barmy.

I'm used to that though!

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

When I was Corgi reg years ago, kitchens for some strange reason were the only place where you needed no ventilation despite the amount of cookers and hobs being used, also the rooms where balanced flue boilers were installed were exempt from ventilaion rules too.

PS Ascot bathroom water heaters were just vented into the roofspace at one time, gas pipes were drilled and teed into live in the roads, testing for leaks was done with a match. :eek::eek:

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

Things have really tightened up these days.

I got my corgi, not once but twice, but each time scrapped it as I didn't want the hassle, and there wasn't the work to justify the responsibility.

Ventilation is a very complex subject, and not as simple as you would think. I'd simply say on the subject, be sensible, and do what a qualified fitter says.

That way you have someone to blame.

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Actually I did see yours, hence mine! It's just that the suggestion or request or order, or whatever, that we should have the hole in the bottom of the kitchen wall, came from some chaps whose credentials quite soon came into question (the word scam arose in the neighbourhood) when they were doing the rounds 'checking' and charging a tidy sum - yes we paid:frown:
so I thought Bil or someone may know the legal niceties! Not to mention the actual physcial risks (the previous owner obviously got her gas contract without the hole in the wall, apart from the one ABOVE the cooker!)

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:D Jee's "a Match" rather him than me...lol... what a risky job !!!

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Oh right, well I couldn't tell you about the 'scam' - our builder did ours when he was reforming the house and l presume it all came in with the final bill.

The previous owners of our house were Spanish, so even if they got their gas contract without it (if they indeed had one), we could not have done.

We also have a smaller vent through the floor to the outside underneath the calientador on the floor above - the gas fitter wanted it done.

We haven't got a vent above the cooker.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

In the UK, you cannot supply all the ventilation needs of an appliance thru the floor, as it's all too easy to cover such a vent accidentally.

As I say, always check with a pro. Incidentally, never be afraid to ask to see their credentials, and if they are coy, tell them to **** off soonest.

Re: Chimney deaths.
 

It has got a proper flue as well as the vent in the floor and it is also next to a window.

It was our local CORGI (or Spanish equivalent) man who fitted it so we assumed it was OK. He does everyone's around here,- water heaters, central heating et al - he is The Man! If you ask for a gas fitter he is who you will get. And he gave us a proper bill with the IVA on!:)

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Thought I'd post an up-date incase anyone else needs their chimney cleaned and can't find a sweep.

Well I went ahead and ordered the kit. They delivered only 3 days later. The rods are very flexible approx 15mm dia and went up the pipe & round the bend without any problems. Got a pan full of soot out. And now if I hold a sheet of newspaper up to the fire it nearly gets sucked up the chimney. :thumbup:

The only downside was that I ended up looking like I'd been up the chimney myself, :lol:
I must remember to wear a mask next time too as I'm still spitting black suff out hours later, even my tongue was black:eek:

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You mean as an epitath?

"It wasn't my fault - blame the gas man".

I like it :)

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Yeah. You really don't want to breathe that crap.

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Living in a ex mining village, I recall when every house in the village had a big coal fire in one of those huge old steel ranges, and chimney fires were common place during Winter nights especially.
Flames and huge showers of sparks would shoot up into the night-air, whilst dense clouds of stinking smoke would almost black the whole street out.
Mostly they tended to burn themselves out ok, but once in a while they could start a fire or wreak havoc indoors, if the old chimney breast was not up to the mark.