do you guys clean your own chimney

isuphipsi1052 said:

I have a VC Winter Warm small model. I'm getting ready to climb up on the roof to clean my chimney as well. No problems with heights since I'm a firefighter, I climb around on roofs all the time. My question, do I need to pull the insert out to properly clean it, or am I ok to simply brush out the chimney?

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Depends - do you have a full liner, or is it a direct connect? If it's a full liner, and you can get the crud out of it, you are fine. If it is only a partial liner or direct connect, then you do need to pull the insert in order to get the crud that goes down around the outside of the direct connect pipe. (This is one of the many advantages of a full liner...)

Gooserider

Man, I'm having flashbacks to being a teenager and helping my father pull the Better 'N Ben's insert that we used to have. Eating soot and creosote, trying to keep it off the furniture. Liners are great!

for anybody out there that is thinking about cleaning their own chimney before you go out and by all the equipment you need get up on the roof and see if you are comfortable enough to be on the roof working first. then measure your flue. then buy. if you don't like the roof then you don't belong up there. not worth the $150.00 you save for the trip to the emergency room.

fbelec said:

for anybody out there that is thinking about cleaning their own chimney before you go out and by all the equipment you need get up on the roof and see if you are comfortable enough to be on the roof working first. then measure your flue. then buy. if you don't like the roof then you don't belong up there. not worth the $150.00 you save for the trip to the emergency room.

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Excellent point! If you're uncomfortable and stiff on a roof, you WILL fall eventually. An ER visit is for the lucky ones, too easy to end up dead. Also be super-aware of your surroundings, seems we hear every year about someone plowing an aluminum ladder into power lines or somesuch. There is no heat cheap enough to be worth trading your life or health for!

double post by accident, 2nd post to follow.

Hey guys just a quick note to add.... as with anything you will want to keep a log of whenever these things occur... Chimney's that are not cleaned annually and develop cresote linings are often the cause of many home fires. As this is the case in the event something were to happen your insurance adjuster will ask you for the receipts for the last time the appliance was cleaned... We recently had a chimney fire case that we were asked to look at and the only thing left standing was the flexible stainless steel liner. With that being said when asked about cleaning the homeowner said, "say what". Also it is part of every manufacture's warranty... if any of you have any questions please feel free to ask.

I could not see spending the going rate of $150 to clean 15' of chimney so I cleaned my own for the first time. I spent 4 hours and ended up a filthy mess, but it only cost me $25 in materials. Use 1/2" electrical PVC conduit. It is much cheaper than the fiberglass rods and probably just as strong and flexible. Put the pieces together and drill a small hole through both pieces and bolt them together (so you can take apart for storage later). Buy a threaded female PVC adapter ($.18) and glue it on the end. Then buy a 1/2" male to 1/4" female brass threaded adapter for $.99 and turn it on the end of the PVC adapter. The brush is 1/4" pipe thread and will turn on the end of this adapter. I used a cheap brush from Menards which is probably why it took me so long but I got it spotless. Take an automotive trouble light and send it down the chimney to check how clean it is all the way down. You can always turn the conduit upside down and use the edge as a scrapper for any gunk the brush won't scrape off. This would be a good time to wear that old Led Zepplen T-shirt your wife hates as she will probably throw it out rather than wash it.

so, am I a "wuss"?
I guess I see it differently - I have a guy that charges 80 bucks (and has a great reputation) to do the job, now thats seems like a fair trade for me, as I hate heights, and work 6 and often 7 days a week, so if I can save time to cut and split wood... a fair trade right?

Vermontster said:

so, am I a "wuss"?
I guess I see it differently - I have a guy that charges 80 bucks (and has a great reputation) to do the job, now thats seems like a fair trade for me, as I hate heights, and work 6 and often 7 days a week, so if I can save time to cut and split wood... a fair trade right?

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I would not say your a wuss, your smart, and know what you are comfortable with and what you aren't. Nothing wrong with that.
$80.00 bucks ain't too bad a deal either. Its about 125-150 here. I am used to heights, and kinda cheap/poor at times. So I do whatever I can myself.
If I had the cash, I'd gladly pay someone else to do it.

We paid $130 last year to have our chimney cleaned, took the cheapest fellow, big mistake. He was a moron and screwed it up and we had to have him come back again to actually remove all the soot he had knocked into the top of the stove and connecting stovepipe, almost completely blocking it. He hadn't disassembled any of the stovepipe, so we took it apart afterwards and found it a mess. So a 'professional' is not necessarily better able to do the job. We have done it ourselves a couple times since, once from the top and once from the bottom. Doing it from the bottom was messier and we probably won't do that again. We don't mind the roof. Our equipment was fairly cheap at Menards.
If you have somebody with a good reputation who will do it for $80, and you don't feel like it, go for it. We do almost everything ourselves, grow a lot of food, can and preserve salsa, jam, peppers, etc., bake our own bread, split our own wood, etc. If you have an actual job, use the money as you like. The other folks around here wanted $159-$200+ to clean our chimney, so $80 is a good deal. I made over a dozen phone calls, many of the chimney sweeps in our area for some reason have gone out of business.

This would be a good time to wear that old Led Zepplen T-shirt your wife hates as she will probably throw it out rather than wash it.

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This line horrified me! I love and cherish my two Led Zeppelin T-shirts. I AM the wife. Saw Jimmy Page and Robert Plant play together twice, both times extremely awesome and LZ-like. On GardenWeb my login name is Led-Zep-Rules.

The question is, is the juice worth the squeeze.... for example say you make 60 dollars an hour at work... or maybe your time is that valuable to your family because say you only have 1 hour with them every night....then all of a sudden 150 dollars isn't that much.... is the juice worth the squeeze (do you make your on OJ or buy it).

Hogwildz said:

Vermontster said:

so, am I a "wuss"?
I guess I see it differently - I have a guy that charges 80 bucks (and has a great reputation) to do the job, now thats seems like a fair trade for me, as I hate heights, and work 6 and often 7 days a week, so if I can save time to cut and split wood... a fair trade right?

Click to expand...

I would not say your a wuss, your smart, and know what you are comfortable with and what you aren't. Nothing wrong with that.
$80.00 bucks ain't too bad a deal either. Its about 125-150 here. I am used to heights, and kinda cheap/poor at times. So I do whatever I can myself.
If I had the cash, I'd gladly pay someone else to do it.

Click to expand...

Gooserider said:

isuphipsi1052 said:

I have a VC Winter Warm small model. I'm getting ready to climb up on the roof to clean my chimney as well. No problems with heights since I'm a firefighter, I climb around on roofs all the time. My question, do I need to pull the insert out to properly clean it, or am I ok to simply brush out the chimney?

Click to expand...

Depends - do you have a full liner, or is it a direct connect? If it's a full liner, and you can get the crud out of it, you are fine. If it is only a partial liner or direct connect, then you do need to pull the insert in order to get the crud that goes down around the outside of the direct connect pipe. (This is one of the many advantages of a full liner...)

Gooserider

Click to expand...

If you have a full liner and brush that crud down into the top of the stove, is that the proper way to clean the chimney/stove?. I'm reading some people's comments about bad cleans due to leaving the crud at the top of the stove. If someone cleaned their chimney and the crud fell on the top of the stove, would all that stuff burn off like it was never there?... I actually don't know, but I'm curious to know how many people with full liners actually pull out their stove VS leaving them in and still connnected to the liner...

partial liner or direct connect

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I know what the difference is. The set up that I see when on the roof is as follows - the old chimney (brick and lined); an outer liner, then a "corrugated" inner liner, topped off with chimney cap/spark arrester.

CK-1 said:

Gooserider said:

isuphipsi1052 said:

I have a VC Winter Warm small model. I'm getting ready to climb up on the roof to clean my chimney as well. No problems with heights since I'm a firefighter, I climb around on roofs all the time. My question, do I need to pull the insert out to properly clean it, or am I ok to simply brush out the chimney?

Click to expand...

Depends - do you have a full liner, or is it a direct connect? If it's a full liner, and you can get the crud out of it, you are fine. If it is only a partial liner or direct connect, then you do need to pull the insert in order to get the crud that goes down around the outside of the direct connect pipe. (This is one of the many advantages of a full liner...)

Gooserider

Click to expand...

If you have a full liner and brush that crud down into the top of the stove, is that the proper way to clean the chimney/stove?. I'm reading some people's comments about bad cleans due to leaving the crud at the top of the stove. If someone cleaned their chimney and the crud fell on the top of the stove, would all that stuff burn off like it was never there?... I actually don't know, but I'm curious to know how many people with full liners actually pull out their stove VS leaving them in and still connnected to the liner...

Click to expand...

A lot depends on how the stove is designed. Some stoves are fairly open between the flue and the firebox, or can be made open easily by removing a few baffles or other parts. These stoves are readily cleaned by brushing the crud down into the firebox, then removing it from there.

Other stoves have baffles or insulating blankets between the firebox and the flue, which are not easily removed, and act as crud catchers. These pretty much have to be disconnected as you do need to remove the crud and there is no way to do so w/o removing the stove.

The crud won't burn off safely, it must be removed - so you do whatever it takes to get it out, however I would say that most stoves can be cleaned w/o being disconnected - stove engineers tend to take cleaning access into account when designing their stoves, so it is something that gets considered.

Even if you do have to disconnect, it is usually far less work to clean a liner than it is a traditional chimney - you have one continuous tube of constant size, and no smoke shelves or other difficult places to have to reach.

Gooserider

isuphipsi1052 said:

partial liner or direct connect

Click to expand...

I'm not sure I know what the difference is. The set up that I see when on the roof is as follows - the old chimney (brick and lined); an outer liner, then a "corrugated" inner liner, topped off with chimney cap/spark arrester.

Click to expand...

A partial liner or direct connect are references to a similar thing, namely a "short cut" method of connecting a stove, which is sometimes "kosher" by code, but often is not, and is generally inferior to a full liner. It is slightly less expensive though, and can be easier to install initially, at a cost of increased maintainance work.

Essentially it consists of a short section of liner that goes into the chimney just a short distance - typically through the damper and up into the first flue tile. Downside is that it generally will not give as good a draft as a full liner, it is more of a risk for flue gasses backdrafting into the house, and it requires that the entire setup be removed for each chimney cleaning in order to get rid of the crud that builds up between the end of the liner and the sides of the chimney, plus all the crud that gets knocked down and falls into the space between the two.

The general reccomendation here on the hearth is that direct connects are not a good way to go, as a properly installed full liner is MUCH superior.

If you see a corrugated inner liner at the top of your chimney, it almost certainly means that you have a full liner.

Gooserider

I guess when I say that I talk about hourly employees... I used to work a lot of OT and sometimes I it was worth paying someone to do something, because the money I made, actually made up for it plus some... but that really is only for hourly employees...

EatenByLimestone said:

MagnaFlex said:

The question is, is the juice worth the squeeze.... for example say you make 60 dollars an hour at work... or maybe your time is that valuable to your family because say you only have 1 hour with them every night....then all of a sudden 150 dollars isn't that much.... is the juice worth the squeeze (do you make your on OJ or buy it).

Hogwildz said:

Vermontster said:

so, am I a "wuss"?
I guess I see it differently - I have a guy that charges 80 bucks (and has a great reputation) to do the job, now thats seems like a fair trade for me, as I hate heights, and work 6 and often 7 days a week, so if I can save time to cut and split wood... a fair trade right?

Click to expand...

I would not say your a wuss, your smart, and know what you are comfortable with and what you aren't. Nothing wrong with that.
$80.00 bucks ain't too bad a deal either. Its about 125-150 here. I am used to heights, and kinda cheap/poor at times. So I do whatever I can myself.
If I had the cash, I'd gladly pay someone else to do it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I can understand valuing your time with your family more, however I never understood the arguement that I make X dollars/hor and this service only charges X/hr. I've never had an employer pay me for my time at home.

If you don't want to clean your chimney. Don't. Nothing wrong with it. Chimney sweeps need to eat too.

Matt

Click to expand...

Gooserider said:

CK-1 said:

Gooserider said:

isuphipsi1052 said:

I have a VC Winter Warm small model. I'm getting ready to climb up on the roof to clean my chimney as well. No problems with heights since I'm a firefighter, I climb around on roofs all the time. My question, do I need to pull the insert out to properly clean it, or am I ok to simply brush out the chimney?

Click to expand...

Depends - do you have a full liner, or is it a direct connect? If it's a full liner, and you can get the crud out of it, you are fine. If it is only a partial liner or direct connect, then you do need to pull the insert in order to get the crud that goes down around the outside of the direct connect pipe. (This is one of the many advantages of a full liner...)

Gooserider

Click to expand...

If you have a full liner and brush that crud down into the top of the stove, is that the proper way to clean the chimney/stove?. I'm reading some people's comments about bad cleans due to leaving the crud at the top of the stove. If someone cleaned their chimney and the crud fell on the top of the stove, would all that stuff burn off like it was never there?... I actually don't know, but I'm curious to know how many people with full liners actually pull out their stove VS leaving them in and still connnected to the liner...

Click to expand...

A lot depends on how the stove is designed. Some stoves are fairly open between the flue and the firebox, or can be made open easily by removing a few baffles or other parts. These stoves are readily cleaned by brushing the crud down into the firebox, then removing it from there.

Other stoves have baffles or insulating blankets between the firebox and the flue, which are not easily removed, and act as crud catchers. These pretty much have to be disconnected as you do need to remove the crud and there is no way to do so w/o removing the stove.

The crud won't burn off safely, it must be removed - so you do whatever it takes to get it out, however I would say that most stoves can be cleaned w/o being disconnected - stove engineers tend to take cleaning access into account when designing their stoves, so it is something that gets considered.

Even if you do have to disconnect, it is usually far less work to clean a liner than it is a traditional chimney - you have one continuous tube of constant size, and no smoke shelves or other difficult places to have to reach.

Gooserider

Click to expand...

I have a PE Summit and a newly installed liner. Do I need to pull that sucker out to clean or leave it in and remove the baffles and such?.. I've read other PE Summit owns removing baffles.. replacing worn gaskets.. etc..

CK-1 said:

Gooserider said:

CK-1 said:

Gooserider said:

isuphipsi1052 said:

I have a VC Winter Warm small model. I'm getting ready to climb up on the roof to clean my chimney as well. No problems with heights since I'm a firefighter, I climb around on roofs all the time. My question, do I need to pull the insert out to properly clean it, or am I ok to simply brush out the chimney?

Click to expand...

Depends - do you have a full liner, or is it a direct connect? If it's a full liner, and you can get the crud out of it, you are fine. If it is only a partial liner or direct connect, then you do need to pull the insert in order to get the crud that goes down around the outside of the direct connect pipe. (This is one of the many advantages of a full liner...)

Gooserider

Click to expand...

If you have a full liner and brush that crud down into the top of the stove, is that the proper way to clean the chimney/stove?. I'm reading some people's comments about bad cleans due to leaving the crud at the top of the stove. If someone cleaned their chimney and the crud fell on the top of the stove, would all that stuff burn off like it was never there?... I actually don't know, but I'm curious to know how many people with full liners actually pull out their stove VS leaving them in and still connnected to the liner...

Click to expand...

A lot depends on how the stove is designed. Some stoves are fairly open between the flue and the firebox, or can be made open easily by removing a few baffles or other parts. These stoves are readily cleaned by brushing the crud down into the firebox, then removing it from there.

Other stoves have baffles or insulating blankets between the firebox and the flue, which are not easily removed, and act as crud catchers. These pretty much have to be disconnected as you do need to remove the crud and there is no way to do so w/o removing the stove.

The crud won't burn off safely, it must be removed - so you do whatever it takes to get it out, however I would say that most stoves can be cleaned w/o being disconnected - stove engineers tend to take cleaning access into account when designing their stoves, so it is something that gets considered.

Even if you do have to disconnect, it is usually far less work to clean a liner than it is a traditional chimney - you have one continuous tube of constant size, and no smoke shelves or other difficult places to have to reach.

Gooserider

Click to expand...

I have a PE Summit and a newly installed liner. Do I need to pull that sucker out to clean or leave it in and remove the baffles and such?.. I've read other PE Summit owns removing baffles.. replacing worn gaskets.. etc..

Click to expand...

I am not a PE owner, but my understanding is that the baffles etc. are fairly easy to remove, though you might need to replace a fairly cheap gasket each time. In a case like that I'd remove the baffles, sweep into the stove and then put everything back together after cleaning up. One minor advantage of sweepin into the stove if that is possible, is that you get automatic 'crud control' if you keep the stove doors closed....

Gooserider

Ahhhhhh.....gotta love the Avalon with the bypass damper, makes it so easy and nothing to remove!

OK, everyone is talking about having a liner. Does that apply to us? We installed our VC Resolute Acclaim a few months ago (didn't have a chimney or anything). We have about 15' of black stove pipe going straight up, then connecting to chimney pipe outside. No twists or turns, the whole thing is a straight shot.

I noticed today that the window on the stove is covered in hard looking black stuff. I haven't had a chance to cool down the stove and closely examine it, but I'm thinking it's glaze. The stove is top loading and I noticed some flaky black creosote on the top. Now, we're new at this and I'm sure we've been making all the rookie mistakes (burning damp wood, letting the fire smolder, etc...). Yikes, what else are we doing wrong? The manual only covers so much!

This weekend we're going to go up on the roof, remove the rain cap and take a peek inside. If the chimney has glaze in it I understand we'll need to call in a professional (which will be a massive bummer as funds are tight). If it's black flaky stuff we'll try our hands at chimney sweeping.

Any suggestions or thoughts? Is there a good article on how to sweep a chimney? What kind of brush should I get (the stove pipe is 6")? Besides the brush and rod, is there anything else we need? I've seen at Home Depot products that claim to reduce creosote build up. Do these work?

Thanks everyone!
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PS. Scary questions here... beware those who are faint of heart.....

How do you know if you have a chimney fire? Do you see flames shooting out of the chimney outside? What if you're comfortably sitting inside? What if you're asleep?

Also, should we not burn again until we sweep this weekend?
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Gosh, I need to take a class on how to use and maintain a wood stove!

maplegirl said:

This weekend we're going to go up on the roof, remove the rain cap and take a peek inside. If the chimney has glaze in it I understand we'll need to call in a professional

Any suggestions or thoughts? Is there a good article on how to sweep a chimney? What kind of brush should I get (the stove pipe is 6")? Besides the brush and rod, is there anything else we need? I've seen at Home Depot products that claim to reduce creosote build up. Do these work?

How do you know if you have a chimney fire? Do you see flames shooting out of the chimney outside? What if you're comfortably sitting inside? What if you're asleep?

Click to expand...

If you can read the manufactures manual on your stove pipe about cleaning do it!

Buy a 6 inch chimney cleaning brush it will knock off even the hard black stuff, just move the brush up and down till its gone. If you can tape a bag to the bottom of a cold clean out to catch the black stuff its no mess. Remember that black stuff, creosote, is carcinogenic use a face mask and clean up carefully afterword.

The best thing to avoid build up is hot fires with dry wood.

I have had at least two chimney fires, both in fireplace chimneys. When you here a jet engine roaring from your smoke stack ones happening. Just shut down the air and throw in a bag of baking soda or ABC fire extinguisher powder, calling the fire department is always a good idea before things get out of hand.

Just google or search here "chimney fire" and "chimney cleaning" for other suggestions.

DriftWood said:

maplegirl said:

This weekend we're going to go up on the roof, remove the rain cap and take a peek inside. If the chimney has glaze in it I understand we'll need to call in a professional

Any suggestions or thoughts? Is there a good article on how to sweep a chimney? What kind of brush should I get (the stove pipe is 6")? Besides the brush and rod, is there anything else we need? I've seen at Home Depot products that claim to reduce creosote build up. Do these work?



How do you know if you have a chimney fire? Do you see flames shooting out of the chimney outside? What if you're comfortably sitting inside? What if you're asleep?

!

Click to expand...

If you can read the manufactures manual on your stove pipe about cleanin do it!

Buy a 6 inch chimney cleaningg brush it will knock off even the hard black stuff, just move the brush up and down till its gone. If you can tape a bag to the bottom of a cold clean out to catch the black stuff its no mess. Remember that black stuff creosote is carcinogenic use a face mask and clean carefully afterword.

The best thing to avoid build up is hot fires with dry wood.

I have had at least two chimney fires, both in fireplace chimneys. When you here a jet engine roaring from your smoke stack ones happening. Just shut down the air and throw in a bag of baking soda or ABC fire extinguisher. Just google or search here "chimney fire" for other suggestions.

Click to expand...

Thanks! We'll give it a go this weekend. I feel better knowing what to look for (or listen for!) if there's trouble.