chimney cap or not?

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Thom Griffin

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Mar 25, 2012
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I've been operating my tarm for 4 seasons with a chimney cap on the metal chimney. Granted, my wood this year has not been prime (I'm not the only one running out of good wood this season, in New England...). Anyway, I'm getting smoke from my load door, and it's not the flue out of the boiler, so it must be the chimney cap as I can see from a skylight that it has a bit of crust on it.

Given that next year, I'll have good wood to burn, the question is: Do I really need a chimney cap at all?
 
I'm a fan of chimney caps. The rain/snow getting in the flue turns the soot & flyash into an acidic mess which breaks down both SS and masonry flues.

TS
 
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I used to have problems with my spark arrestor getting plugged up and getting smoke out the door and poor draft. I just had
to hit it with a stick a few times free up the junk. The chimney was always clean though. I finally took out the spark arrestor
and just put on the cap and all is better. I would not want water getting in the chimney as boilerman said.
 
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NCFord said:
I used to have problems with my spark arrestor getting plugged up and getting smoke out the door and poor draft. I just had
to hit it with a stick a few times free up the junk. The chimney was always clean though. I finally took out the spark arrestor
and just put on the cap and all is better. I would not want water getting in the chimney as boilerman said.
Click to expand...
I'll second that, unless it's a camp in the middle of the woods and not used very often, ex-neh on the spark arrestor as well!

TS
 
When I was burning less than ideal wood I took the cap off but, now that my wood is dry the cap is back on and not causing any issues for me. That being said I prefer the cap but sometimes it makes sense to burn without it on a temporary basis.
 
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