A surprising event

My apologies for the silence for over a week now, things got very busy at both work and home, and of all the things that I could afford to slip on, the blog ended up having to be one. I've been sick, and we've had a lot going on. I'm going to be posting today. and tomorrow. I'm also going to be aiming to get in a third post next week to make up for the lack of posts last week. For today I'd been intending to get back into things by talking about wood and the wood stove, but my plan for the day has changed a bit due to a surprise event.

If you can't tell what that is, don't be surprised. I didn't know what it was at first. If I had realized I'd have gotten a photo before I cleaned it off. That is a cracked off corner from the inside corner of the fireproof glass on the wood stove.

The basic story is, when I was finishing loading up the wood stove for the night before I went to sleep I closed the door to the loaded wood stove, and saw what looked like a very regular piece of charred wood on the lip of the wood stove. It looked off to me, so I picked it up, and brushed it. When the ash came off and it was clear it took me a moment to figure out what it was because I was so tired. My first thought was "How did glass get into the wood" followed by "shit!" I opened the door, and checked the corners of the glass, and that's exactly what it was. I pulled the wood that wasn't fully involved in the fire out, and got it into a snow pile outside. I stayed up watching the last piece that was fully burning until it self extinguished with water and a fire extinguisher ready if it overfired, or did anything dangerous.

I got lucky that I noticed this piece of wood, that kind of damage to a wood stove could have been very much worse than having to shut it down. If I hadn't caught it it could have over fired the stove potentially causing a chimney fire or other structural damage. It could have ended up with an air leak leaking smoke or carbon-dioxide into the house. Honestly I don't know everything that could have gone wrong, and I'm just as happy to have not found out what could have gone wrong. Of course, the wood stove being out of commission is a bit of a problem given how much of our heat it provides. It's a very central part of our house in the winter, so we're going to be contacting a professional, and seeing if we can get it fixed, or what needs to happen in general. Always a learning experience.