Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => General Outdoor Furnace Discussion => Topic started by: silver star on January 31, 2018, 08:59:50 AM
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Some sad news in a nearby county. A 47 year old veterinarian died from injuries in an outdoor furnace explosion on his property. He seemed to be very involved in his community.
No details were given on what the explosion was about. I may make a call to get more info. Are any types of furnaces capable of that?
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I suppose it is possible but details would help any analysis. If the unit somehow became over-pressurised, it could explode, but I would think a fitting would give way first. There are TV shows which have shown what happens to a home's hot water tank when the relief valve is capped off and the thermo shut off is overridden. A small house can be easily destroyed! There is a lot of potential energy in a pressurized vessel!
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Heard from another source that liquid fuels were somehow involved - like gasoline. Not sure it is true but it might explain a lot.
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Chemicals had to be involved. Because there all open systems.
Cycling burning anything kinda chemicals . Is only way.
This could happen .
Heat550
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Chemicals had to be involved. Because there all open systems.
Cycling burning anything kinda chemicals . Is only way.
This could happen .
Heat550
Not necessarily, Heatmor’s run like 4lbs pressure and I think it was Hardy ran the same pressure as a indoor boiler, or could be run.
Maybe a duel fuel model and for some reason the LP or nat gas didn’t ignite but it also didn’t shut off?
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I suppose you could call my Heatmor "pressurized." The pressure is held in by a rubber ball over a 1" pipe sticking vertically out of the water jacket. The rubber ball has about 6" of 1/4" stainless rod in it as weight. There's a small rubber innertube used as the expansion bladder, too. Explosion from that would be highly unlikely. The rubber ball would vent pressure. If that were capped, the innertube would over expand and blow, or worst case one of the rubber hoses held on by a worm clamp would pop off of the door and dump all of the pressure.
I'd also say that a chemical is likely the cause of an outdoor boiler explosion.
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There are a whole mess of possible scenarios here. Aquatherm is probably the biggest, but there are several other OWB out there designed from the factory to run as a pressurized system at 12+ PSI. EconoBurn, Royall, Woodmaster makes one now, Jack, Greenwood, Tarm, not to mention a plethora of the small manufacturers and homemade units. I've also seen a few folks try to pressurize a regular, non-pressurized unit which we know is a bomb. Also saw a P&M BL2840 once that the float on top would get frosty and freeze in, then build a bunch of pressure and blow the float 100 feet in the air and shoot a bunch of water out the fill/vent hole. There are a lot of units out there building unnecessary pressure. A guy on the FB page a few weeks ago was having some issues with his Aquatherm operating at 45psi! 1 gallon of water makes something like 1600 gallons of steam, so something like that could easily level a house if it were inside and flashed to steam. This poor fella that got killed, I would sure think there was some sort of catalyst involved like gasoline or whatever. However the back of my mind wonders what if it was just the wood gas igniting? We've all lost an eyebrow from opening the boiler door too fast in the wrong part of the cycle, and I myself broke a finger last winter from one of these flareups. I was standing behind the door with my hand on the latch, and when it caught enough air it jumped into a fireball which in turn smashed the door open with enough force to break my middle finger and made my wrist sore for weeks. Maybe if the poor guy was off guard and something like that happened, it's entirely possible that the door could've torn off the hinges and smashed his head or whatever. It's all speculation at this point and nobody really knows for sure, but no matter what happened it's still an unfortunate scenario and should be a reminder to all of us that what we're calling a lax daily activity, can in fact be very dangerous if handled improperly. BE CAREFUL!
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A few years back we had a service call where a guy's Aqua-Therm had "blown up" . Turns out the pressure relief valve had rusted shut so when something caused his boiler to overheat the welds failed in the back of the fire box. The fire box door blew open and the wood put a dent in the wall acrooss the shed from it.
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I suppose you could call my Heatmor "pressurized." The pressure is held in by a rubber ball over a 1" pipe sticking vertically out of the water jacket. The rubber ball has about 6" of 1/4" stainless rod in it as weight. There's a small rubber innertube used as the expansion bladder, too. Explosion from that would be highly unlikely. The rubber ball would vent pressure. If that were capped, the innertube would over expand and blow, or worst case one of the rubber hoses held on by a worm clamp would pop off of the door and dump all of the pressure.
I'd also say that a chemical is likely the cause of an outdoor boiler explosion.
Yah, forgot all about the rubber hoses for the door, if standard heater hose they routinely take 16 lbs when on a vehicle.
The wood gas theory is interesting.
Still wonder if maybe he thought it was out and added something and it found some live coals.
I really feel for his family of course, but would be nice to definitely know as to educate others on the dangers of flammables, following directions, routine maintenance like checking relief valves etc.
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If this is accurate, I would bet that a large amount of gasoline was probably involved.
http://www.wave3.com/story/37377076/orange-county-in-mourns-beloved-veterinarian
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More than likely some other fuel was involved vs a pressurized explosion but its hard to guess for sure. Perhaps a dual fuel model malfunctioned. Either way, very unfortunate.
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The news article said he died from burns. If a pressurized boiler blew up I doubt it would have been burns that were mentioned. (unless it was steam burns)
The part about the wife's burned hands makes me think he was on fire and she was trying to put it out. It seems really unlikely that the flash of wood smoke would continue long enough to set him on fire unless he was wearing some highly flammable clothes.
If the fire was out and he threw some gas of other flammable liquid in, it could have been sitting there smoldering and filling the firebox with fumes and then self ignited or he struck a match and it went kaboom.
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My cousin had an explosion from a bit of kerosene on hot ashes in an indoor stove that burned his lungs and had him in in the hospital burn center for a few days.
Could happen to any of us. I've singed my sideburns plenty of times, in a hurry.
Wow, I feel for his family.
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I will just about guarantee you he opened his boiler either deep in the burn cycle or emediatley after. We had a gentleman in his 70s that the exact same thing happened to. He opened the door and the flame came out and burned him so bad flesh was falling off his bones. He also sat and talked to people and died a few minutes later. I've had a couple close calls myself and it is nothing more than user error. If her hands were burned then his cloths were likely on fire and she was trying to put it out. I could be wrong on this but it can happen, trust me it can. I have learned my lesson and I am much more careful than I was when I first put mine in.
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You know diesel fuel or kerosene. Can do strange stuff it can vaporize you'll see like a steam like and 10 secs later it can ignite and it's a crazy ignition on coals. I seen this on brush fires. Also older heatmors 1994 model had no safety switch on outside door. This was style you just didn't load unless fan was on . I had light on it so you know from house when you can load it . Someone not knowing can try to open it fan was off it blow pretty violently I don't think it would be as bad to kill a person . And the ball on heatmors would always pop off . Steam in door lines would be the most evil that I can think of but there directed away from a person.. sure is to bad .. to me the tip was wife's hands there must of been chemical burning and splashed around the way it sounds..
Heat550
Like to know the facts what he did or stove he was dealing with.
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I have posted this before. But, a simple backdraft after a burn cycle can create quite a fireball. I knew the burn cycle had just ended and there was a good fuel load in the box so I knew there was going to be a fireball. I ALWAYS check my temp before I open the door. A temp near my high set point is an indicator of a possible backdraft. Something like this could easily engulf someone standing right next to the door.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cnVqYdNc94
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That is exactly what happened to the guy in my area who died a few minutes after it happened. He told his wife he believed he would be ok if he could just sit down for a minute. She said in 2-3 mins later he collapsed and never regained consciousness. Pronounced dead at the scene. He had been using a Taylor conventional for several years. He was an experienced boiler user. The reason I'm saying all this is it could happen very quick and we all need to be aware of the danger. Some boilers may not have this danger at all, but if you find out it does in the middle of that fireball it could be too late. Dad always told me on the farm that our equipment is not dangerous it's when we use them the wrong way and don't respect the risk of danger.
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I have posted this before. But, a simple backdraft after a burn cycle can create quite a fireball. I knew the burn cycle had just ended and there was a good fuel load in the box so I knew there was going to be a fireball. I ALWAYS check my temp before I open the door. A temp near my high set point is an indicator of a possible backdraft. Something like this could easily engulf someone standing right next to the door.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cnVqYdNc94
Yah that could get ugly in a hurry, especially depending on what your wearing. I could see a down coat with a nylon shell taking off like a roman candle.
Every once in awhile I’ll get a flannel shirt thats practically fuzzy for christmas, I refuse to wear those when filling the boiler.
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Smart Thinking ;)
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There has to be more to this story . Did I miss what the guy was doing ??? :bag:
Heat550
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I learned today that he tried to get his wodd burning by adding acetone. Had severe burns and succumbed at the hospital.
Similar to events when meth labs blow. Pretty good vapor trails can come from that.
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Acetone... Wow.. I saw a guy start a burn barrel fire with acetone once. Giant "whuff", never again. !
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Somebody on facebook said lacquer thinner, but either way it goes whoof in a hurry.
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Acetone in a small area is really bad.
Heat550
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I worked in a place in high school that had an auto body division of sorts, to repair and paint restaurant and store equipment like the coolers and freezers in your grocery store. They had 2 paint booths and each booth had a steel trash can with wheels that all the laquer rags, paint funnels, etc would get tossed in. It was my job to take out the trash EVERY DAY, but as a lazy 16 year old kid I knew better, since the barrels were only 1/4 full I'd skip them for a couple days. Until the boss was in the shop after hours welding a new kingpin on one of the trailers. Paint booth was empty and door was open, he apparently shot a spark from the grinder into one of those trash cans and almost blew the place up. I was there a couple weeks ago to buy something from him and there is still a big smash in the ceiling from a projectile paint can that was in that barrel. Dangerous stuff!
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I remember my dad trying to get the fire restarted his coal furnace he had a small flame but when he poured the kerosene in it smothered the flame so he walked across the basement grabbed an Ohio blue tip wooden match goes back over to the coal furnace and by then it has a cloud of white vapor in the firebox against his better judgment he strikes the match and tossed it in kaboom huge fireball actually blew the pipe out of the chimney and moved the furnace about three inches on the floor singed his beard and scared the snot out of everyone in the house thank god that was the extent of it could have been much worse he decided at that point to use newspaper and kindling I don't think he had any cob webs left after that incident