Critter in my chimney

Birds come down chimneys sometimes. Dont be too shocked. After you get this taken care of, put a screen on your chimney cap. In my experience, 80% of folks dont get birds in the chimneys, ever. The 20% that get them once, will keep getting them forever...EVARRRR. Your screen will need to be checked and cleaned (millions of tips on how to do this if you search) but it will keep the birds out. Contact your local Jotul dealer for the new part.

34'????? Criminy. Yeah, you wouldnt catch me up there either. Id contact a local chimney guy, suck it up and pay them to do it. Make sure the screen is just small enough to keep the birds out. It will keep it from clogging as fast. Unless of course, our esteemed panel of Hearth.com folks come up with a different solution.

Chris,
just curious, do you ever get draft issues (too strong) with that high of a chimney with your oslo?

wow... I have chimney envy.

If that's ICC chimney have them put the wind sheild on it instead of the screen it will keep out everything but the real agressive birds and it won't cause draft issues like the screen when dirty. We stopped using screens allmost 4 years ago and we only get maybe one or two people a year complain about birds with the windscreen.

Holy crap thats a hell of a chimney.

Monday afternoon I thought I heard some scratching noise from the chimney (hadnt burned anything in over a week) plus the 3 cats were staying close & listening for something.Opened the glass doors,seen black dust all around the inside,closed doors,still heard it,slammed open the damper & closed it real fast - yup there was a starling that dropped down to the floor.Opened doors partway again,put on gloves,grabbed it carried outside & away it went.

Yikes! Break out the harness for that one! :bug:

cmonSTART said:

Yikes! Break out the harness for that one! :bug:

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Looks familiar to me

I got dizzy just looking at the top of that thing. Good luck with your critter problem!

RSNovi said:

skinanbones said:

If that's ICC chimney have them put the wind sheild on it instead of the screen it will keep out everything but the real agressive birds and it won't cause draft issues like the screen when dirty. We stopped using screens allmost 4 years ago and we only get maybe one or two people a year complain about birds with the windscreen.

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I am not sure what ICC chimney is.

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ICC Excel is the brand of a Class A metal chimney . . .

Getting to the top of that looks like my everyday work.. Haha. But if you're not going to tackle it yourself ask your chimney tech to install a Weathershield brand (or similiar) cap. Nice Stainless cap with screen all the way around.

For the folks that don't have/want screen on their caps. Common sense. No screen, you may get critters down the pipe.
The debate can go on forever, but here, I have no problem with the screen getting clogged. I say it every year, burn good DRY wood and don't have it smoldering 24/7, and you won't have a problem.
I do agree you should have a screen with large openings. Screen the cap or deal with what comes without.

Few years back I had a duck - big one too, fall down on in - this was before I had one of them fancy chimney cap things. Called the local PD - looking for animal control, but our town doesn't really have animal control folks, so they sent out a cruiser and between the fine town police officer, my brother and law, and myself we pulled the stove and extracted the fine fowl. Took him/her outside and he/she flew away. That christmas, under the tree was a mallard duck statue which has lived by the woodstove ever since.

Oh, and I plunked a chimney cap on too.

I've had smaller birds get in with no screen ( and an old fireplace, too) on the cap. Figured they were after tasty bugs.
Squirrels and chipmunks are just nuts and will poke themselves into anything if they think there might be food at the other end.

I've always had to have a cap of some sort with the woods all around and so close to the house ( don't want much lawn) I want to minimize the chance of embers making it out to the dry forest floor. Edges of a hay field are probably pretty dry, too.

Hogwildz said:

For the folks that don't have/want screen on their caps. Common sense. No screen, you may get critters down the pipe.
The debate can go on forever, but here, I have no problem with the screen getting clogged. I say it every year, burn good DRY wood and don't have it smoldering 24/7, and you won't have a problem.
I do agree you should have a screen with large openings. Screen the cap or deal with what comes without.

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+1 . . . Only three years in, but no hide nor hair of any critters crawling, flapping, flying, scratching or squirming around my chimney or woodstove . . . as stated . . . screens work providing you burn at the right temps and burn seasoned wood . . . and have large enough screening.