Saturday, January 16, 2010

Smoky House

A word of caution - it is never a good idea to clean house. If you do there is sure to be something that will make that clean house much dirtier than it was when you first started to clean it.
Like - the dog will throw up or the dog will tear up 3 of your favorite pillows, or the cat will make sure there is cat litter everywhere 0r hubby will walk through with mud on his shoes or you might be the one with mud on your shoes or just maybe like last night you will find the house is full of smoke because the wind may have caused the ash that was stuck to the sides of the stove pipe to fall down and block the pipe so the smoke comes into the house instead of up the chimney like it is supposed to. (We do clean the pipe several times each winter and had done it about 2 weeks ago.)
What a mess.
We have had the woodstove smoke from time to time but this was the worst. We had put more wood into the woodstove about a half an hour before this happened and gone to bed. Thankfully we weren't asleep yet when we began to notice the smoke. But it kept getting worse and worse and not knowing any other way to put out the blazing wood in the stove Lee used one of our small fire extinguishers on it.(Everyone should have several small fire extinguishers in their house for safety. We keep one in the kitchen, one in bathroom, and one in garage as well as one in hayshed.) So we had the white fire extinguisher powder added to the smoke and soot that was coming out of the stove pipe. But it worked. The fire went out. It did take a bit longer for the hot coals to cool completely. The house was filled with smoke. I made sure all 3 cats were in the bedroom and opened every door and window. It cleared out slowly. But left a horrible smell. If anyone has any ideas on how to get rid of the smell of woodsmoke I would like to hear them.
Of course this happened the day after I had cleaned the livingroom thoroughly because it had been ages since I had done a really good job of it.
So I cleaned again. And cleaned and cleaned while Lee went up on the roof to clean the uper part of the pipe and then wiggled and squirmed behind the stove cleaning the stove pipe that was in the house. While we were cleaning we had all the windows and doors open and I boiled cinnamon water on the cook stove to try to help with the odor. Again I am glad I keep old blankets on the couch and chairs to help keep them clean with a dog and 3 cats laying on them frequently. The funiture itself didn't get as much. Hopefully a good vacuuming was enough for the carpet. And I have dusted everything again.
Last evening we had frozen pizza to which we added satuted onions as we always like onions on the pizza and thought the odor of the onions would help with the smoke odor.
There is still some odor left but it is gradually fading.
Not something I want to experence again.

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