Chimney Fire??

all right, this really could be the start of a soap opera...
but last night we noticed some additional glowing in our fireplace and after some poking and shifting of the "surround" (the cast iron attachment that blends the insert to the original brick fireplace and makes it pretty) i saw a wee little fire happening on top of the insert.
this is not supposed to happen.
so, we dampened the fire and kept it really low until the extra fire died out completely and then we let our fire go out too. i called the guys who installed it and they sent out a crew early this afternoon. turns out there was a design flaw with the model (vermont castings wood burning insert with catalytic converter) the place on the top where the liner meets the insert wasn't originally secured because there was about 2 inches of overlap and i guess they thought it'd be fine. typically as a stand alone unit, it would have been fine because you'd use a different liner, but our chimney has bends (as do most) and the liner we used is flexible so it seems that as you get a good fire cooking, the liner can wiggle it's way out of the insert and that's where the trouble starts because flames can lick up outside the liner and ash can pile up, etc etc. we were lucky that we're a little neurotic about paying attention to the insert when we've got a fire going (it's a completely enclosed system so technically you could walk away from it). so the company had a fix kit and that's what the guys installed, basically securing the liner to the insert so it's a tight fit that won't wiggle out at all and we shouldn't have any other problems.
but last night, i'll tell you i was about fed up with house issues. we're still not flushing the toilet paper. i've been told this is how they do it in europe, so maybe now we've got a fancy european bathroom experience to offer our guests but really, i just wanna be able to flush it.
i did discover today (while waiting for the chimney men) that we CAN do small loads of laundry without any additional flooding. this is really exciting because i was running out of socks.
also more good news today is that the small water damage from that storm with the crazy winds that came through several weeks ago--it's covered by the homowners insurance.
thank god for small favors.