Scary Experience Lighting the Coal Furnace

Post by **Lightning** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:22 pm

Hmmmm last year I was concerned about my furnace rotting in the summer humidity so I sprayed the interior with some motor oil. I think it worked well. When I lit my hand fed furnace this year I noticed a small pool of oil in the ash pan area towards the back. I thought, its just oil it will burn off no problem..

Any guesses on what happened once that searing heat started radiating down thru the grates?

michaelanthony · Post by **michaelanthony** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:24 pm

Oh no, hope the family is ok and I'm guessing every window in the house is open!

titleist1 · Post by **titleist1** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:26 pm

still have your eyebrows?

Post by **Lightning** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:29 pm

michaelanthony wrote:Oh no, hope the family is ok and I'm guessing every window in the house is open!

Thank you for your concern partner,
Yes everyone is fine but my underwear wasn't in very good condition after the event..

I did have to open the basement windows though!

Post by **Lightning** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:31 pm

titleist1 wrote:still have your eyebrows?

I maintained minimum safe distance curled into a fetal position on the other side of the room for a small period of time

michaelanthony · Post by **michaelanthony** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 10:37 pm

Sounds like a close one.

And thanks for the seltzer water out my nose while reading your response!

Post by **Lightning** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 11:06 pm

Things were going well with the lite up.. Got my charcoal burning good, added my first layer of coal.. About 30 minutes into it I could hear the oil sizzling in the ash pan area. I got on my knees and looked and saw that the oil was on fire, in the ash pan area.. I thought, ok that shouldn't be a problem, it will just burn up no problem.. I had a nice flame coming off the top of the coal bed, ash pan door open about an inch, load door propped open about half an inch for secondary air to come in to burn volatiles off the top of the coal bed.. Everything going smoothly.. Then, thru the window of the load door that I just installed, I notice it getting very dark in the fire box. A thick black smoke was choking my coal fire.. My heart started to pound a little bit, my eyes widened, I stepped back a few feet cuz I knew things were getting very unstable in there... Then it happened, the thick black cloud of vaporized oil tried to ignite and a big yellow flame with thick black smoke rolled out of the load door I had propped open. My first thought was, what the hell am I gonna do!! Don't close the load door!! It could starve and flash!! Don't close the ash pan door, more unburned oil smoke will come up thru the coal bed!! I opened the load door more to attempt diluting the thick smoke so it couldn't ignite. I got one more thick bellow of black smoke, then it stabilized, diluted, and continued to burn in the ash pan area till it was gone.. But I'm tellin ya, I was ready to tell everyone to get out of the house and call the fire truck.... Scared me hard core.. Next time MOP UP THE EXCESS OIL IN THE ASH PAN AREA BEFORE LIGHTING THE FURNACE

Please learn from my obliviousness ...

2001Sierra · Post by **2001Sierra** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 11:18 pm

Next year I am spraying the inside of my stove with "FLUID FILM", very friendly product, truck, van and dump trailer undersides are all sprayed up waiting for the onslaught of winter and attached corrosion. Next spring will tell if it was worth the effort or LPS3 again.

Carbon12 · Post by **Carbon12** » Tue. Oct. 22, 2013 11:26 pm

Glad it was "merely" a learning experience! Count as revenge by the oil cartels for burning coal!

waldo lemieux · Post by **waldo lemieux** » Wed. Oct. 23, 2013 8:40 am

The visual is good but a video would have been better

If yer not makin any mistakes yer not doin much at all. Now about those underwear, soak with oil and place in ash pan..no wait TRash Can

009to090 · Post by **009to090** » Wed. Oct. 23, 2013 9:06 am

2001Sierra wrote:Next year I am spraying the inside of my stove with "FLUID FILM", very friendly product, truck, van and dump trailer undersides are all sprayed up waiting for the onslaught of winter and attached corrosion. Next spring will tell if it was worth the effort or LPS3 again.

I'm sticking with LPS3. I haven't found anything better.
But it is rather expensive...

top top · Post by **top top** » Wed. Oct. 23, 2013 3:29 pm

With 20/20 hindsight, you could have simply put some paper towels in the oil and lit that first. The burning oil would have started your coal fire without any big event.

Post by **Lightning** » Wed. Oct. 23, 2013 3:38 pm

top top wrote:With 20/20 hindsight, you could have simply put some paper towels in the oil and lit that first. The burning oil would have started your coal fire without any big event.

Maybe, but hydrocarbon based fuels don't work very good to start a coal fire. They don't burn hot enough, from what I've read on here anyways.. It needs something that burns hotter like wood or charcoal.

gaw · Post by **gaw** » Wed. Oct. 23, 2013 11:14 pm

All’s well that ends well but that is a funny story. Why do we laugh at other peoples mistakes? I guess because they are not our mistakes.

Don’t get me wrong I would not have guessed that it would behave the way it did but I am glad that you did the research for me.

Post by **Lightning** » Thu. Oct. 24, 2013 2:34 am

gaw wrote:All’s well that ends well but that is a funny story. Why do we laugh at other peoples mistakes? I guess because they are not our mistakes. Don’t get me wrong I would not have guessed that it would behave the way it did but I am glad that you did the research for me.

Yeah,, there was a handful of minutes that passed by where I was feeling a bit helpless.. Confusion was setting in, mind racing to work out scenarios before attempting to react

... I only expected the oil to burn off slowly but evidently the heat radiating down thru the grates caused it to vaporize much more quickly and the only place it had to go was up thru the coal bed where the oil vapor got heated even more and became unstable.. All ended well though