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Straight pipe dryer exhaust is absolutely the way to go. Not nearly as much of a fire risk (but still needs to be cleaned regularly). Hell, there was more lint on the inside of my dryer under the drum then there was in the pipe. And for god's sake, pipe them outside! All this talk about re-using the heat and humidity make me think of all the CO poisoning from gas dryers. Also, yes, get the drat chimney cleaned. Creosote deposits and the venting of a chimney can and do turn them into blast furnaces.
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Nov 30, 2016 05:15
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:Are those cleaning logs any good? No.
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Nov 30, 2016 05:16
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Metal Geir Skogul posted:Are those cleaning logs any good? No. They're more for maintaining a clean chimney, not clearing a totally hosed one.
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Nov 30, 2016 05:18
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Clean your chimney like you clean your rear end: with clenched teeth and a chimney brush
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Nov 30, 2016 05:20
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Bad Munki posted:Clean your chimney like you clean your rear end: with clenched teeth and a chimney brush
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Nov 30, 2016 05:44
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Never go A to C with the same B.
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Nov 30, 2016 05:51
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Bad Munki posted:Well, it's sorta normal if you don't operate the damper properly. Maybe not to that degree, but starting a wood fireplace can fill a house with smoke pretty drat fast if you don't completely know what you're doing. Not to question anyone's expertise, buuuuuut...do either of you have much experience with wood stoves/fireplaces? The damper was completely open. I peered up into the chimney (a steel one, not brick) the next day and it seemed reasonably clean. It seems to me like it might not be tall enough or wide enough, though.
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Nov 30, 2016 06:01
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Qwijib0 posted:I love it when the 'rigged' solution is more time intensive and almost as (more?) costly as the correct one. Like most such rigged solutions, it may be time intensive for labor, but it offered a project delivery timeline orders of magnitude better than the alternatives (the stores are closed, if they'd even sell what I need, so scrounging parts gets a solution in an hour instead of waiting days for a delivery). As for price, this was free, since everything was already on hand, and cheap to start with. Platystemon posted:I don’t know what the industry accepted solution is, but I’d probably use a variac. I would've used a variac too, if I had one. The original plan was to use the speed controller included with the blower, but I learned the hard way that those cheap speed controls use triac phase cutting, and it made the blower wail like a banshee. My plan to fix the light bulb "rheostat" was to wire up some large ceiling fan capacitors as a speed control instead. Unfortunately, I just had to guess at what capacitance I needed, so it was a process of trial and error. I was kind of lazy about it, and I'd only narrowed it down to the range of 25-50 microfarads before a bearing in the blower went bad. So I replaced the whole mess with a Panasonic whisperline that was the right speed to start with.
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Nov 30, 2016 07:23
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atomicthumbs posted:The damper was completely open. I peered up into the chimney (a steel one, not brick) the next day and it seemed reasonably clean. It seems to me like it might not be tall enough or wide enough, though. If he ends up going to the extent of rebuilding/modifying the chimney it might be worth looking into getting a coonara style heater, a lot more efficient and less likely to fill the house with smoke, albeit more expensive. You can run a coonara chimney right up a normal one so if changing the chimney results in costly structural changes to accomodate it then it might be worth a thought to upgrade. As far as lighting the fire goes use lot's kindling over a smallish pile of loosely packed tinder like a teepee and blow on it/pump bellows (push air in basically) if it starts smoking a lot, and use really dry wood. You can burn green/damp wood mostly smokelessly with enough heat, but that probably means you've got a small bonfire rather than a large fireplace. As a rule collect/buy next winters wood this year and keep it under cover after you've spit it.
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Nov 30, 2016 09:40
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atomicthumbs posted:The damper was completely open. I peered up into the chimney (a steel one, not brick) the next day and it seemed reasonably clean. It seems to me like it might not be tall enough or wide enough, though. Was the smoke mostly just at the start? My dad taught me to always get a draft started by burning some newspaper up high by the flue so heat starts to rise up the chimney, then to light the fire. The convection will prevent any smoke from puffing out of the fireplace.
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Nov 30, 2016 13:30
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Also keep in mind that anything else that sucks air out of the house is probably going to be drawing that air from the easiest source, i.e. the gaping hole that is the chimney, and any cold air supply to the fireplace. Things such as the dryer, the bathroom exhaust fan, the range hood, the central vac system, etc. Turning those off until you get the chimney hot will help at the start.
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Nov 30, 2016 13:36
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My chimney sucked and didn't have an insert so I stuck a balloon up its hole http://www.chimneyballoon.us/buychimneyballoon.html I definitely don't have a sharp draft going through my basement as much (I found that the previous owner ran a coax from the outside world and didn't use any thing to seal the hole)
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Nov 30, 2016 14:42
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Not so much crappy construction, but... My dad moved into a new home near Yosemite. For those that don't know, the areas surrounding the Yosemite are basically a monocrop of pines slowly shading out oak woodland. With years of drought, pine bark beetles are running wild (and so is Sudden Oak Death, but that's not as important). Basically, Yosemite *really* needs a nice, hot crown killing fire, but that's not going to happen until enough pines die. Anyhow, my old man moved into this house . I go around, looking the place over, and immediately I spot several of the pines on the property are just loving dripping with sap. I mean, crown to roots, sap. I tell the old man to cut down those trees ASAP because the beetles are almost through killing them. He rolls his eyes at me and pets me on the head, assuring me that he knows those trees are fine. Today, first thing in the morning, he calls me up to tell me that high wind knocked over a pine into his house. Thankfully it didn't do much besides gently caress up his gutters some, but he's going to get the pines on his property cut down. 
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Nov 30, 2016 15:52
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A White Guy posted:He rolls his eyes at me and pets me on the head, assuring me that he knows those trees are fine. That was the best possible outcome to be sure. If it had fallen on the house or car, that would be a pretty painful 'I Told You So'.
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Nov 30, 2016 16:55
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Suspect Bucket posted:That was the best possible outcome to be sure. If it had fallen on the house or car, that would be a pretty painful 'I Told You So'. To be fair, anyone building in the WUI and not designing their home as a mainly subterranean concrete bunker is going to get a very painful "I Told You So" over the next few decades.
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Nov 30, 2016 21:20
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https://m.imgur.com/a/1F5su That'll do it!
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Dec 1, 2016 01:42
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kid sinister posted:https://m.imgur.com/a/1F5su Also notice the dent in the wall, about the size of a fist. And bifold door, instead of a regular door. That ceiling is plaster and lath, that board will do a great job holding it until landlord sends the cheapest handyman in the world to install drop ceiling underneath.
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Dec 1, 2016 03:26
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Nitrox posted:Also notice the dent in the wall, about the size of a fist. And bifold door, instead of a regular door. What are you talking about, that board is the result of the landlord repair 
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Dec 1, 2016 15:19
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kid sinister posted:https://m.imgur.com/a/1F5su After Hurricane Jeanne in '04, my dad did that with 2" x 2" x 1/8" aluminum angle and 3 1"x3"s nailed into the joists to fix the ceiling in their bedroom where it was collapsing from a roof leak. It worked until it got re-ceilinged. I really hope that's not permanent.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:53
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glynnenstein posted:Was the smoke mostly just at the start? My dad taught me to always get a draft started by burning some newspaper up high by the flue so heat starts to rise up the chimney, then to light the fire. The convection will prevent any smoke from puffing out of the fireplace. it was puffing the entire time. One Legged Ninja posted:Also keep in mind that anything else that sucks air out of the house is probably going to be drawing that air from the easiest source, i.e. the gaping hole that is the chimney, and any cold air supply to the fireplace. Things such as the dryer, the bathroom exhaust fan, the range hood, the central vac system, etc. Turning those off until you get the chimney hot will help at the start. there was nothing like that in the house due to the previously pictured electrical panel problems
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Dec 1, 2016 21:14
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atomicthumbs posted:there was nothing like that in the house due to the previously pictured electrical panel problems
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Dec 1, 2016 21:45
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Bad Munki posted:Clean your chimney like you clean your rear end: with clenched teeth and a chimney brush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHeO1Tdv0w is this a good idea ?
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Dec 1, 2016 23:38
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The_end posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHeO1Tdv0w
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Dec 1, 2016 23:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIijYgvxW0g Do that, but to your chimney. Don’t actually do that.
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Dec 1, 2016 23:54
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Platystemon posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIijYgvxW0g A really good demonstration of the aforementioned chimney fire! Imagine that, but it's 20 times the size, you can't turn it off, and it's coming from a thing inside your house. 
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Dec 2, 2016 00:11
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Bad Munki posted:Clean your chimney like you clean your rear end: Hire a chimney sweep to do it
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Dec 2, 2016 00:16
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Alereon posted:How is that thing cleaning the chimney? It looks like its just sucking air through it, how is it drawing enough to dislodge soot? It would also be vibrating the gently caress out of that metal chimney. The vibration could dislodge stuff, maybe?
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Dec 2, 2016 00:19
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Nitrox posted:Also notice the dent in the wall, about the size of a fist. And bifold door, instead of a regular door. Christ and here's me paying a structural engineer to sign off on calculations to show that i can get rid of a stud wall supporting a ceiling, get rid of the ceiling itself and replace with one hung from the joists above. I should have just pinned a plank over it instead! That said I think I'd be better off just putting double doors into the wall, double heading the studs over the doorway and bracing with a diagonal to support the ceiling joists but apparently nobody will sign off on that.
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Dec 2, 2016 01:14
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couldcareless posted:What are you talking about, that board is the result of the landlord repair Exactly how our landlord "repaired" the ceiling in our old rental house when roof leak during a huge storm let a massive amount of water in, which just about collapsed the ceiling. Luckily we caught in time to punch a hole in the ceiling and drain the water. He just put a board across the sagging and molding gyprock, and got someone out to repair it for a real a couple months later.
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Dec 2, 2016 01:49
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This was our old house Ceiling caved in from a leaky roof. 4x8 plywood and some bolts held for another 10 years or so.
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Dec 2, 2016 02:34
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Dec 2, 2016 15:29
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I can't stop laughing at this, it's such a perfect analogy for so many things
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Dec 2, 2016 18:04
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Hey kids, call before you dig! See that "smoke" rising by the big auger thing? That's not smoke! This is from yesterday in Pasadena, CA. You could smell gas the entire city block. By the time lunch was over they had sent home the fire ambulance and ladder truck, the fire fighters were just standing around bored while the SoCalGas guys were aggressively clipboarding and cell phoning.  
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Dec 2, 2016 18:19
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Baronjutter posted:My building has central heating and we have no control over it which means i'm woken up at 4am every morning by intense heat. It's winter but we have to sleep with the windows wide open. It means it's freezing when we go to bed but otherwise it gets too hot. The radiators have little knobs on them but turning them seems to do nothing, and the one in our bedroom doesn't turn at all. I lived in an apartment that had steam heat once. Those valves do nothing. One time it was -20f outside yet the inside was unbearably hot. The window wouldn't open as someone had screwed it shut. I was panicking and ended up turning on the A/C unit in our bedroom to cool it down. I hate steam heat.
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Dec 2, 2016 18:44
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OSU_Matthew posted:I can't stop laughing at this, it's such a perfect analogy for so many things  I'm sure they just forgot to install the set screw, but it's still amusing.
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Dec 2, 2016 18:47
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I'm just angry that there's no video with audio of that. I want to hear a convincing kerthunk and a metallic rattle with that gif.
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Dec 2, 2016 19:27
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facialimpediment posted:I'm just angry that there's no video with audio of that. I want to hear a convincing kerthunk and a metallic rattle with that gif. it's amazing what they have on the internet these days https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbaUlm7TzKg
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Dec 2, 2016 22:04
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http://i.imgur.com/40Iw8eb.gifv
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Dec 2, 2016 22:51
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How are there possibly no railings there???
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Dec 2, 2016 23:01
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Baronjutter posted:How are there possibly no railings there??? It'd be fine except for the person WHO CAN'T SEE THE LACK OF A FLOOR RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.
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Dec 2, 2016 23:05
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