Bird trapped in chimney - any ideas?
Clive Page
fireplace and it's clear a small bird has fallen down the chimney and
got stuck there. We've had this before many years ago, but found the
bird eventually escaped into the room and we were able to chase it out
of the door. This time it resolutely refuses, but it's clearly alive
and intermittently active.
The fire is a Jetmaster, the standard model I think, rather as shown on
this web page, http://www.jetmaster.co.uk/wood-fire-specifications.php
from which one can see that there is a space above the fire, with two
holes a few inches across where the smoke goes up. The bird seems to be
in the central area between them and above the metal parts of the fire.
I guess having fallen once it isn't keen to jump down another hole
into an unknown future. I can't see how to dismantle the fire without
pulling it out into the room, which would be pretty difficult now, as
there's a large hearth that would have to be removed first.
There is a shutter which closes off the flue when not in use; I've
opened this of course, and by peering up I can sometimes just see its
tail feathers or the tip of its beak, if the bird moves to the right
position. I've tried so far:
* Threading my arm up (wearing gloves) to try to grab it or part of it.
* Shining a bright light up to tempt it down.
* Tempting it with a bit of wet bread on a long fork (wet bread is still
there)
* Pushing rags up one hole to try to fill the void so it has no option
but to come down the other hole, but the void seems too large for this
to work.
* Pushing netting up in the hope that it will get entangled, and can be
pulled down.
But we're beginning to run out of ideas. Of course the poor bird might
be dead by the time you read this, in which case I'll have a different
problem (but at least then it won't move about when I try to grab it).
--
Clive Page
Andy Burns
> For the last day or so we've been hearing scraping noises from above the
> fireplace and it's clear a small bird has fallen down the chimney and
> got stuck there.
David WE Roberts
"Clive Page" <use...@page2.eu> wrote in message
news:97gsuq...@mid.individual.net...
> For the last day or so we've been hearing scraping noises from above the
> fireplace and it's clear a small bird has fallen down the chimney and got
> stuck there. We've had this before many years ago, but found the bird
> eventually escaped into the room and we were able to chase it out of the
> door. This time it resolutely refuses, but it's clearly alive and
> intermittently active.
>
> The fire is a Jetmaster, the standard model I think, rather as shown on
> this web page, http://www.jetmaster.co.uk/wood-fire-specifications.php
> from which one can see that there is a space above the fire, with two
> holes a few inches across where the smoke goes up. The bird seems to be
> in the central area between them and above the metal parts of the fire. I
> guess having fallen once it isn't keen to jump down another hole into an
> unknown future. I can't see how to dismantle the fire without pulling it
> out into the room, which would be pretty difficult now, as there's a large
> hearth that would have to be removed first.
<snip>
We had a similar fire to the Jetmaster (UK made), and to sweep the chimney
you just slid the whole fire box out into the room (onto the hearth) and
then slid it back in afterwards.
This was all laid out in the installation intructions.
If you can't get a bird down, how do you get a set of chimney sweeping
brushes up and then recover the swept soot?
Ah, O.K., removable throat restricctor.
Which allows you to get a brush up it and remove the soot afterwards.
So the Friendly Manual suggests that you undo the nuts and remove the throat
restrictor.
http://www.jetmaster.co.uk/resources/installation.pdf
Of course, the installer should have left you with a copy of this.
HTH
Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
Clive Page
> So the Friendly Manual suggests that you undo the nuts and remove the
> throat restrictor.
> http://www.jetmaster.co.uk/resources/installation.pdf
> Of course, the installer should have left you with a copy of this.
Thanks, David. I haven't seen that before. I looked on their website
but, stupidly, I didn't realise that the installation guide had the
information I needed. Bird is quiet and obviously sleeping now; will
try to take off the throat restrictor tomorrow.
--
Clive Page
The Natural Philosopher
eventually it died and I was able to extract the mess eventually from below.
Think of it as Darwin in action....
DavidM
Some years ago we had a pidgeon down the chimney, but only part way
down - it was running up and down the sloping bit of the flue.
Wife called the fire brigade for advice, "don't worry madam, we'll
send an engine round". Engine duly arrived, great entertainment for
all the kids in road - school holidays. Fireman on roof, two more in
living room peering up chimney, rods being poked up and down, bird
running up and down - an hour later, "sorry madam - we've got another
call, have to wait until it drops out on it's own, but don't light a
fire, you don't want a flaming pidgeon flying around your living
room!"
A week or so later wife was hoovering all the dust out of the
fireplace when the hoover sort of stalled. Pulled the nozzle out - one
dead pidgeon with it's head stuck up the spout. Presented to me to
"clean up the mess" when I got home from work that night.
Mark
<t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I doubt it will have a significant impact of the evolution of the
species.
--
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(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.
The Natural Philosopher
> On Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:03:44 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
> <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Clive Page wrote:
>>> On 05/07/2011 20:16, David WE Roberts wrote:
>>>> So the Friendly Manual suggests that you undo the nuts and remove the
>>>> throat restrictor.
>>>> http://www.jetmaster.co.uk/resources/installation.pdf
>>>> Of course, the installer should have left you with a copy of this.
>>> Thanks, David. I haven't seen that before. I looked on their website
>>> but, stupidly, I didn't realise that the installation guide had the
>>> information I needed. Bird is quiet and obviously sleeping now; will
>>> try to take off the throat restrictor tomorrow.
>>>
>>>
>> I had one such that failed to exit at the bottom
>>
>> eventually it died and I was able to extract the mess eventually from below.
>>
>> Think of it as Darwin in action....
>
> I doubt it will have a significant impact of the evolution of the
> species.
Its is very important to remove the utterly dimwitted and clueless from
the gene pool before any possibility of breeding happens.
Otherwise look at Drivel, Dennis@Home and harry.
And be very afraid..
geoff
<t...@invalid.invalid> writes
While I don't always agree with TNP, ...
valid point
--
geoff
Clive Page
>> from the gene pool before any possibility of breeding happens.
I agree in general, but here...
The on-line manual for the Jetmaster wasn't any help, as I guess the
model we have here is too old. But eventually, after liberal use of
WD40, I managed to shift enough bolts to dismantle part of the fire and
remove the (now dead) bird. I was slightly surprised to see that it was
a young magpie (black and off-black from the soot). I threw the body on
the lawn. Other magpies in the area spotted it quite quickly and spent
the next few hours making intermittent alarm calls. It isn't there this
morning, no doubt our local fox got it. All part of life's rich
pattern, as they say.
Back to Darwinism: I have obviously removed a dim-witted magpie from the
gene pool but is this a good thing? I'm not entirely sure I want the
magpie species to be even fractionally more intelligent.
--
Clive Page