Hi
I was wondering if you could give me a few thoughts about the perennial subject of chimney sweeping - that time of year again!
Last year, I had the opportunity to get my hands on some wood from an old barn that was being dismantled and built myself a lean-to woodshed attached to my garage. Its walls are covered with a fiber that is a kind of super strong fine gauze that lets the air through but keeps out rain and snow. It's southwest facing and I stack the wood in it in June/July and leave the door open on sunny days and by the end of summer the wood inside is completely bone dry. Put onto glowing charcoal, the wood catches fire in about 10 seconds and I always stack 5 pieces of wood in line in the fire in a 2:2:1 configuration with 2 pieces at the bottom, 2 on top of them and then 1 piece resting on top and it gives a very good smoke-free combustion. I think there is hardly any creosote produced at all. I have Pacific Energy Spectrum stove and in winter after a couple of weeks of 24/7 burning there is just a slight brown deposit (creosote?) on the glass but one spray of glass cleaner and it's gone. I know the Spectrum has clean glass airflow but there is very little smoke produced. The chimney goes up through the house (not external) and from the outside the top of the Selkirk chimney looks about as clean as the day it was installed 3 years ago.
I'm wondering what to do about getting the chimney cleaned. The photos on this link show the woodshed, and chimney viewed from outside plus the setup of the woodstove and pictures of the inside of the chimney
http://perso.wanadoo.es/andrew.bagley/ToSweep.htm
You can see there is ash deposited on the inside of the stove pipe that goes to the ceiling which definitely looks like it needs to be cleaned, but this deposit reduces markedly once the stove pipe gets to the Selkirk chimney proper as you can see on the telephoto picture where there is a distinct ring and the deposit reduces. You can see the reflection from the joints going up the Selkirk chimney. There was about 1.5" of carbon deposited in the cap that covers the bottom of the chimney pipe.
I had the chimney swept a year ago and the sweep cracked the glass in the woodstove door (he paid for repair) and also you can see corrosion of the stove pipe from acid on his hands when he was working on it - rust marks literally finger shaped!
So, I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what needs cleaning or maybe all? Wondering if I could just clean out the stove pipe myself but leave the Selkirk? Also, I wonder if I ought to look at cleaning out parts of the woodstove as well?
Thanks for any advice for any thoughts.
Pavesa
I was wondering if you could give me a few thoughts about the perennial subject of chimney sweeping - that time of year again!
Last year, I had the opportunity to get my hands on some wood from an old barn that was being dismantled and built myself a lean-to woodshed attached to my garage. Its walls are covered with a fiber that is a kind of super strong fine gauze that lets the air through but keeps out rain and snow. It's southwest facing and I stack the wood in it in June/July and leave the door open on sunny days and by the end of summer the wood inside is completely bone dry. Put onto glowing charcoal, the wood catches fire in about 10 seconds and I always stack 5 pieces of wood in line in the fire in a 2:2:1 configuration with 2 pieces at the bottom, 2 on top of them and then 1 piece resting on top and it gives a very good smoke-free combustion. I think there is hardly any creosote produced at all. I have Pacific Energy Spectrum stove and in winter after a couple of weeks of 24/7 burning there is just a slight brown deposit (creosote?) on the glass but one spray of glass cleaner and it's gone. I know the Spectrum has clean glass airflow but there is very little smoke produced. The chimney goes up through the house (not external) and from the outside the top of the Selkirk chimney looks about as clean as the day it was installed 3 years ago.
I'm wondering what to do about getting the chimney cleaned. The photos on this link show the woodshed, and chimney viewed from outside plus the setup of the woodstove and pictures of the inside of the chimney
http://perso.wanadoo.es/andrew.bagley/ToSweep.htm
You can see there is ash deposited on the inside of the stove pipe that goes to the ceiling which definitely looks like it needs to be cleaned, but this deposit reduces markedly once the stove pipe gets to the Selkirk chimney proper as you can see on the telephoto picture where there is a distinct ring and the deposit reduces. You can see the reflection from the joints going up the Selkirk chimney. There was about 1.5" of carbon deposited in the cap that covers the bottom of the chimney pipe.
I had the chimney swept a year ago and the sweep cracked the glass in the woodstove door (he paid for repair) and also you can see corrosion of the stove pipe from acid on his hands when he was working on it - rust marks literally finger shaped!
So, I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what needs cleaning or maybe all? Wondering if I could just clean out the stove pipe myself but leave the Selkirk? Also, I wonder if I ought to look at cleaning out parts of the woodstove as well?
Thanks for any advice for any thoughts.
Pavesa
