chimney cleaning quantities

Thanks for posting. I get a very similar amount and have a 17' long insulated 6" rigid liner. A lot of the stuff I gen is gray, perhaps 1/2. I'm burning 4 cords / year.

Mike

That is doing pretty darned good Rusty. However, I do hope any new wood burners get the idea they can go that long between cleanings!! New wood burners need to check their chimney often, like maybe 4 times minimum each of the first 2 years they burn wood. By then they should be able to stretch it out more but still most folks need to clean annually at least.

how much wood would you estimate you burned?

We burn 3 cords per year here. How about you Rusty?

As long as it's the dry powder stuff your fine. When you see the crunchy burnt popcorn or shiney sticky black goo something is wrong. I always get about a quart of fine black dry powder from my 20+ foot liner.

5 cord thru 18ft of exterior masonry chimney netted me about a gallon of crispy creosote. No shiny deposits, though. Might have to invest in a liner this summer.

A few cord in the the shop furnace thru 6" class A chimney gave back about a cup or two of fine dust.

RustyShackleford said:

I decided to measure the amount of creosote more carefully
that the usual (me included) vague statements "it looked like
enough to fill a shoebox". Here's what I got: about 440 grams
with a volume of about 1.8 liters of dry flakey/powdery black
stuff. This is from a 6" ID metalbestos chimney about 17ft
tall plus a single-wall connector pipe about 5ft tall including
a 6" offset made from two 45-degree elbows.

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440 grams? How many shoe boxes is that?

Did anyones look like this?

BrotherBart said:

Krisrob said:

Did anyones look like this?

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Mine used to look like this:

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nice mirror bb

Krisrob said:

Did anyones look like this?

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yep

Mine looked pretty ugly. I had the insert installed mid January, and started burning full time by the last week in January. I burned a lot of crappy wood that I bought from a guy who swore up and down that his wood was well seasoned. I had a pro come and clean my chimney last month. I think I'll be cleaning it from here on out. Hopefully this coming winter after burning some seasoned wood, it won't be so ugly in there.

Backwoods Savage said:

That is doing pretty darned good Rusty. However, I do hope any new wood burners get the idea they can go that long between cleanings!! New wood burners need to check their chimney often, like maybe 4 times minimum each of the first 2 years they burn wood. By then they should be able to stretch it out more but still most folks need to clean annually at least.

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I actually encourage new wood burners to check monthly and clean whenever they get a quarter inch of build up . . . mainly because new wood burners are learning a) the importance of using truly seasoned wood (and many unfortunately are burning semi-seasoned wood that they thought was seasoned because they were told it was), b) many are not burning the stove at a high enough temp because it simply seems hot to them and they don't want to build "too big" of a fire vs. having a thermometer to tell them it's hot enough, but not to the point of overfiring hot and c) many have either never used a woodstove in their entire life or remember helping their Dad or Mom with their woodstove back in the 1970s or 1980s and the advice they're getting from their parents may not be all that applicable or good with the new woodstove (i.e. bank down the stove, load it up with unseasoned wood for a longer burn, etc.)

That said . . . even with two years in I still check and clean my chimney religiously every month . . . a) it's easy to do with an outside chimney and b) it would be really, really embarassing if the guy who "preaches" about fire safety had a chimney fire in his own home.

This was my first year with my insert with cleanings in January and last Saturday. The stove manual recommended twice the first year and as needed after that. I have 22' of SS pipe. The pictures show what I came up with on Saturday's cleaning. The cannisters were very feather light in weight and essentially all of it was fine, dust-like particles.

Does anyone have a before (cleaning) and after (cleaning) picture ?

I'm sure that my chimney is not very clean but I'd like to understand the how it will look like ( after cleaning)

this is what I got outta my 12'

I will say this is not my flue but an unfortunate customers'. Nothing a "Roto sweep" can't handle.



When it was all said and done 2 1/2 5gallon buckets full of crispy goodness.