Is this ok in my chimney or should I be watching very closely

Just an amateur opnion, I could be wrong....

The shiny black on the chimney cap is mildly concerning to me, but i don't go up on the roof to look at mine.

I think your flue deposits will probably be OK. That stuff should brush out easily and end up as gray powder in the collection bag. Grey /brown powder is "best". A few flecks of shiny black is OK. A lot of black powder not so good.

Sticky sheets of shiny black is the worst - which brings me back to looking at your cap.

Look forward to responses of others, I am accustomed to looking in the bag of collected sweepings at the end...

Looks normal if doing short burns and it cools off. A hot burn should clean it right up.

How much wood have you put through the stove since your last cleaning?

In my opinion it is hard to assess by just looking down. It is a lot easier to assess after you clean and can examine exactly what the creosote looks like.

My guess, I don't think the cap and the chimney was spotless at the start of this season. The cap looks like mine, which I removed the screen. I take my cap off every year and clean it. After a full season it's dirty, but not as bad as yours. That said, yours is not to bad. If this is new to you this year, learn how to clean chimney, and check it occasionally. Marginal wood, will burn but will gunk it up rather quickly. Not a problem if you clean it.

Maybe I'm looking at the pipe wrong. As far as creosote deposits go it looks fine but that pipe looks like flaking galvanized and maybe not chimney pipe??? IDK

Can you put your stove make and model in your signature?

kversch said:

Thanks again guys Just want to make sure I know what to watch out for.

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Learned first-hand bad burning and good burning. What I see would not concern me. Gray flakes are fine, the cap will naturally be the coldest area and might look like that a few times a year.

Look for: not black residue, certainly not sticky/wet-looking.

Easy check on how you're doing is to go out and see what smoke is coming out of the chimney: black, blue smoke is bad; you're choking out the fire and the flue gases are too cold (incomplete burning). White smoke is good and normal at first (enough air to burn and things (stove/pipe/chimney) are heating up), and then no smoke is great/cruising.
Then you have to be wary of overfiring, where a thermometer is handy.

If you're asking what I think you're asking you just undo the screws on the interior parts take them off and clean them. Than re-assemble. Atleast that's what I've always done.

kversch said:

How do I go about cleaning my chimmny? I've watch a couple YouTube vids and read a few things on here. My outside pipe seems straight forward other then will the bends be a problem pushing a brush past? Brush top to bottom. View attachment 168720

It's the inside set of pipes I'm not do sure on. From the clean out t to the stove. Here's what my pipes look like.
View attachment 168721

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begreen said:

I think I would brush that bottom up, through the bottom of the tee. Then detach the interior pipe and brush that separately.

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My chimney looks almost identical to this right down to the offset to clear the soffit. Always thought that brushing from the bottom would be the way to go since it's super easy to open the cleanout to get access, but what about the cap? If I'm careful enough and get the brush into the cap and give it a few turns would that be sufficient?