Two weeks of burning - creosote question

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Ramcononer

New Member
Nov 17, 2011
125
Long Island, NY
I've been burning 24/7 for around two weeks now. Wife and I are learning the stove and I know that we haven't burned optimal as the door glass has been cleaned three times. I cleaned out some ash this morning and immediately extinguished with water. There were some coals in the stove but not very hot so I decided to check the chimney. The very top of the liner seemed to have a sticky black substance. I could only see a few feet down as the coals were still smoking. Will this stuff burn off/melt when I get a real fire going or is this a creosote problem? I want to thank you all again, because of this site I am checking the chimney regularly and would never have thought to check. A sincere thank you.
 
Black sticky=room for improvement

couple of clues we need to know....what are your stovetop temps when burning? how long is your chimney? fully lined? how dry is your wood? I'm sure the others will chime in. also keep in mind the last 2 weeks temps in the northeast have not been the best burning and may be affecting your draft.
 
maxed_out said:
Black sticky=room for improvement

couple of clues we need to know....what are your stovetop temps when burning? how long is your chimney? fully lined? how dry is your wood? I'm sure the others will chime in. also keep in mind the last 2 weeks temps in the northeast have not been the best burning and may be affecting your draft.

Temps with an ir gun are 400-625 when cruising...startups and reloads are cooler obv. Fully lined chimney 15' tall. I have no moisture meter for my wood but it catches fire very quick. I am working on the next few years wood supply currently. Temps have been in the 50's but I haven't had any problems getting a good draft. Thanks for the help so far....

I Checked the chimney liner this morning after fully shutting the damper 10 hours prior. Still hot coals but stove was 200f. Does this stick black stuff "freeze"/accumulate when temps go down???
 
Ramcononer said:
maxed_out said:
Black sticky=room for improvement

couple of clues we need to know....what are your stovetop temps when burning? how long is your chimney? fully lined? how dry is your wood? I'm sure the others will chime in. also keep in mind the last 2 weeks temps in the northeast have not been the best burning and may be affecting your draft.

Temps with an ir gun are 400-625 when cruising...startups and reloads are cooler obv. Fully lined chimney 15' tall. I have no moisture meter for my wood but it catches fire very quick. I am working on the next few years wood supply currently. Temps have been in the 50's but I haven't had any problems getting a good draft. Thanks for the help so far....

I Checked the chimney liner this morning after fully shutting the damper 10 hours prior. Still hot coals but stove was 200f. Does this stick black stuff "freeze"/accumulate when temps go down???

That sticky black stuff is basically tar. It will get stiff like tar (cold), it will soften like tar (hot) and it will BURN like tar.

I would suggest that you start monitoring your stack temp. Surface mount thermo on single wall or probe type thermo on double wall. Sounds like you are running a cool flue or your wood could be sub-par. Whatever the cause is, you need to keep checking on it.
 
ramconoer, what kind of wood are you burning? would you know when it was cut, split and stacked?

I went thru the same thing you did (many moons ago) and it turned out to be our less than seasoned oak. I had to prove it tomyself with a mm from harbor freight.
 
Need to know if this sticky stuff is just in the top few inches of the liner or if it extends farther down. Not unusual for there to be some above where the liner is inside the chimney. It is a problem if the stuff is farther down in the liner.
 
Ramcononer said:
I've been burning 24/7 for around two weeks now. Wife and I are learning the stove and I know that we haven't burned optimal as the door glass has been cleaned three times. I cleaned out some ash this morning and immediately extinguished with water. There were some coals in the stove but not very hot so I decided to check the chimney. The very top of the liner seemed to have a sticky black substance. I could only see a few feet down as the coals were still smoking. Will this stuff burn off/melt when I get a real fire going or is this a creosote problem? I want to thank you all again, because of this site I am checking the chimney regularly and would never have thought to check. A sincere thank you.

Get some of this, it should change that sticky tar to a fine ash .

http://saversystems.com/chimney-products/acs-anti-creo-soot

zap
 
I just cleaned my chimney a couple days ago for the first time this year. My raincap was pretty nasty as was the top few inches of the pipe but the rest was pretty clean. The only way to know for sure is to clean it out and see how much you get or look all the way thru it. It could just be cooling off a little at the top and condensing especially with the milder temps and possibly less than ideal wood. I only got about a cup of creosote out of my 15 foot chimney
 
BrotherBart said:
Need to know if this sticky stuff is just in the top few inches of the liner or if it extends farther down. Not unusual for there to be some above where the liner is inside the chimney. It is a problem if the stuff is farther down in the liner.

+1

When I initially fired my Englander 30, to my surprise, the chimney cap stained and some of the blackish stuff dripped down the side of the flue with some rain. With both my stoves, first fires blackened the glass to some extent and the cap. I think it was the interior of the stove burning off in each case. I would suggest burning at minimum hot enough to have a smoke free chimney, regardless of the condition of your wood. That will minimize any creosote build-up. I cleaned my Englander's chimney and found that the creosote I had was more like fine powder.

You got a great stove - keep at it, it will get better.

Bill
 
I will let the fire go out completely to check the chimney farther down. As far as the wood, it is some oak split and stacked for about a year. I can really get a probe on my liner as it's a very tight fit, any other way to monitor the temp? Can I shoot the top of the liner with the ir? I notice at the end of a burn cycle it seems to smoke a little more?
 
leeave96 said:
BrotherBart said:
Need to know if this sticky stuff is just in the top few inches of the liner or if it extends farther down. Not unusual for there to be some above where the liner is inside the chimney. It is a problem if the stuff is farther down in the liner.

+1

When I initially fired my Englander 30, to my surprise, the chimney cap stained and some of the blackish stuff dripped down the side of the flue with some rain. With both my stoves, first fires blackened the glass to some extent and the cap. I think it was the interior of the stove burning off in each case. I would suggest burning at minimum hot enough to have a smoke free chimney, regardless of the condition of your wood. That will minimize any creosote build-up. I cleaned my Englander's chimney and found that the creosote I had was more like fine powder.

You got a great stove - keep at it, it will get better.

Bill
Thanks, I am just trying to do this right...especially since I don't have a moisture meter, I am checking the chimney more often to be safe....
 
Ramcononer said:
Can I shoot the top of the liner with the ir?

Sorry, I missed the part about the "liner". So I now assume that you have a liner stuffed into an existing chimney. That pretty much shoots the idea of a stack temp thermo. Yer, gonna have to run it by the stove temp.

This may all be for naught. As BroB said, get a good look down that liner. If your only talking about the top foot or so, this is probably a non-issue. It will be a completely different story if the stuff goes down farther. Take a good look and let us know.
 
since I don’t have a moisture meter

If you do get one (Menards has the cheapies for 12 or so), first split a split--check it inside. The outside might read a nice 20%, the inside might read 30%+.

Here's a query: Is the ACS anti-creosote the only product that works?
 
Ramcononer said:
I will let the fire go out completely to check the chimney farther down. As far as the wood, it is some oak split and stacked for about a year. I can really get a probe on my liner as it's a very tight fit, any other way to monitor the temp? Can I shoot the top of the liner with the ir? I notice at the end of a burn cycle it seems to smoke a little more?

Bingo! There is the root cause of the problem. Around our place we will not burn oak until it has been split and stacked a minimum of 2-3 years. Before that time, problems arise. Stack it 3 years and it is never a problem and the fires you get are wonderful.
 
3 years on oak it is......damn that's long.....I need to learn tree Id so I can grab faster drying stuff!
 
ram, did you ever check how far down the sticky stuff goes?

if your chimney is fine and the wood is a less than ideal you can always burn pallets. I had to do that to let my wood supply age. Also sometimes you can find folks that are so far ahead they may be able to trade wood piles with you. Finding real seasoned wood for sale can be tough at this time of year.

ps we moved off LI about 20 years ago and know what you are up against.
 
maxed_out said:
ram, did you ever check how far down the sticky stuff goes?

if your chimney is fine and the wood is a less than ideal you can always burn pallets. I had to do that to let my wood supply age. Also sometimes you can find folks that are so far ahead they may be able to trade wood piles with you. Finding real seasoned wood for sale can be tough at this time of year.

ps we moved off LI about 20 years ago and know what you are up against.

Old post but No I haven't had a chance to check, been realy busy with work but I just got my brush and will be cleaning this weekend..I'll update..thanks!
 
Dennis is right, oak is one of the best woods to burn, but one of the slowest woods to season. You have to be very very patient, esp. when the wood is coming from a green tree. Even blowdowns and leaners that have been dead for a long time may need time to season, they hold water.
 
Let us know how you make out. Take pics :)
 
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
Let us know how you make out. Take pics :)

Will do! I have to travel for business and the wife will be running the stove. Unfortunately when I work the wife is in charge of the stove and I am not 100% confident in her ability. I want to give her a clean slate with the ss liner so she can gunk it up when I am away.
 
Ramcononer said:
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
Let us know how you make out. Take pics :)

Will do! I have to travel for business and the wife will be running the stove. Unfortunately when I work the wife is in charge of the stove and I am not 100% confident in her ability. I want to give her a clean slate with the ss liner so she can gunk it up when I am away.

Have her post here...we'll help her keep the chimney clean.
 
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
Ramcononer said:
Doing The Dixie Eyed Hustle said:
Let us know how you make out. Take pics :)

Will do! I have to travel for business and the wife will be running the stove. Unfortunately when I work the wife is in charge of the stove and I am not 100% confident in her ability. I want to give her a clean slate with the ss liner so she can gunk it up when I am away.

Have her post here...we'll help her keep the chimney clean.

HA! She only knows how to use Facebook....she is also 6 months pregnant so I can cut her some slack!! So my Rutland Brush has shipped...I'll have the liner cleaned by 9 am Saturday morning...Ill try and get some pics so everyone on this forum can scare the heck out of me....
 
Years ago when I burned a wood furnace, I would take a spray bottle of full strength bleach and spray it in the wood furnace as the fire was roaring pretty hot and it would carry the vapors up the flue. This would then coat and start the creosote to flaking and it would fall to the bottom so I could clean it out at my masonry flue clean out door. What I dont know is if full strength bleach would harm a stainless steel liner. I didnt worry about the masonry clay lined flue. A test you can do is take some creosote pieces if you have any and drop them in a cup of bleach or your favorite strong cleaner and see which one breaks it down the best. I got the bleach idea one time from I needed to clean some black stuff that ran down my flue out my clean out door in my basement from a heavy rain storm that had blown alot of water under my cap and down the inside of the flue. It wasnt much I had to clean it up but my local stove place said that bleach was the best thing to use to clean stains like that. It broke down the creosote stains really well so I wondered if it wood chemically alter the creosote up in the flue. Well it didnt magically make it disappear but it broke it down enough for it to flake off and fall to the bottom. After all the flaking the flue was always clean as a whistle, well almost that clean , Clean as a flue could get.
 
Ramcononer said:
3 years on oak it is......damn that's long.....I need to learn tree Id so I can grab faster drying stuff!


To me thats debatable. If your stacks are off the ground and covered on top it will be less.
 
Lots of good advice in the replies.
Glad you are on top of it & planning a cleaning this week end.

With marginal wood, Burn hotter fires, clean the chimney monthly & inspect every 2 weeks.
I had to do that until I got ahead with my wood supply.
Dry wood is a treat to burn, when you burn some real dry wood, you'll notice the difference :)
I consider my birch to need 2 years (1 yr recommended) to season after I burned some 3 yr CSS stuff, ""What a difference"" .
Your location also effects the time it takes wood to dry well
 
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