My wife and I bought our first home about 2 years ago, and shortly thereafter, installed a County 210 Performer woodstove in the basement. Even with the luxury of natural gas, I love harvesting and seasoning our fuel supply for the winter months. I've been very happy with the stove, and it keeps us at a blazing 85 in the basement and 70 upstairs. Our house layout seems to work as good as we could hope when it comes to heating the entire house. I just installed 15 new vinyl windows, and I can tell this is going to be an even warmer winter, with reduced wood usage.
During the last two seasons of wood burning, I would check our chimney monthly for creosote accumulations. I’ve never seen a measureable reduction in the pipe diameter, just flaky black powder. I figured, if it looks this good up here, it must be fine down lower where it’s hotter. But Hearth.com has taught me better, so I resolved myself to sweep before starting this season, and thus bought a 6†polymer brush and 20’ of rod, for a mere $33. Now for some humor.
Detaching and removing my raised up 300+ lb insert was not going to fly. My pregnant wife confirmed that she would not be assisting me. Our insert is installed in a ZC fireplace, up to an offset box, 2 feet of flex thru a 45 degree jog, then 18’ of 6†rigid pipe, inside the original 8†double wall pipe. Top-down cleaning seemed to be the best idea, and with the offset box, this was a one-way street.
Up on the roof, I joyfully plunged my new brush a few feet into the liner. Upon reversal, I found my brush to be absolutely stuck in the pipe! I yanked so hard I could feel the flex pipe stretching and the entire chase cap was starting to lift up. My chimney pipe is about head-high when standing on the roof, so I imagined maybe I was just poorly positioned. A quick trip to the garage yielded my step-stool, but I still can’t pull the brush. Next I reach shoulder-deep and manage to get a handful of bristles and an armful of soot. Can’t budge it. Panic and natural selection start to kick in, and now I’m kneeling on top of the chase. Then stupidity takes hold, and I am standing on the chase, yanking frantically on the brush until it finally releases. Time for a sanity check; I measure the rigid pipe, check the brush size. Everything is good, but there is no way this is going to work. Out comes the Leatherman, and I starting clipping bristles by about 1/8†all around, testing the fit as I go. I found my happy medium. Still lots of resistance and tough reversals, but at a reasonable amount. I was able to feel the transition from rigid to flex pipe, but now as it’s getting dark out and I am thoroughly soot-covered, I wonder if all the trouble was worth it. So I head to the basement and see just how worth it my efforts really were. Wow, that’s a lot of ???. Creosote? Or just fly ash? Very, very fine powder. At any rate, I am convinced; I will be an annual sweeper.
Before sweeping, I removed the top bricks and insulation blankets. The bricks are fine, but the blankets seem fragile and a bit matted. Any opinions on this? Should I just replace them now, while I have it all apart? How long do your blankets last?
Also chipped out some monster size clinkers from burning Homefire Logs. I love those logs for overnight burns, but the deposits are really something else. As they burn, I can see molten droplets of mineral(?) deposits collecting on the floor bricks.
Besides still needing to vacuum out the offset box, and reinstall the bricks and blankets, I would call this a successful first sweep. If nothing else, definitely a learning experience! Thanks to Hearth.com’s always helpful posters. Even if I don’t post much, I always enjoy reading here.
During the last two seasons of wood burning, I would check our chimney monthly for creosote accumulations. I’ve never seen a measureable reduction in the pipe diameter, just flaky black powder. I figured, if it looks this good up here, it must be fine down lower where it’s hotter. But Hearth.com has taught me better, so I resolved myself to sweep before starting this season, and thus bought a 6†polymer brush and 20’ of rod, for a mere $33. Now for some humor.
Detaching and removing my raised up 300+ lb insert was not going to fly. My pregnant wife confirmed that she would not be assisting me. Our insert is installed in a ZC fireplace, up to an offset box, 2 feet of flex thru a 45 degree jog, then 18’ of 6†rigid pipe, inside the original 8†double wall pipe. Top-down cleaning seemed to be the best idea, and with the offset box, this was a one-way street.
Up on the roof, I joyfully plunged my new brush a few feet into the liner. Upon reversal, I found my brush to be absolutely stuck in the pipe! I yanked so hard I could feel the flex pipe stretching and the entire chase cap was starting to lift up. My chimney pipe is about head-high when standing on the roof, so I imagined maybe I was just poorly positioned. A quick trip to the garage yielded my step-stool, but I still can’t pull the brush. Next I reach shoulder-deep and manage to get a handful of bristles and an armful of soot. Can’t budge it. Panic and natural selection start to kick in, and now I’m kneeling on top of the chase. Then stupidity takes hold, and I am standing on the chase, yanking frantically on the brush until it finally releases. Time for a sanity check; I measure the rigid pipe, check the brush size. Everything is good, but there is no way this is going to work. Out comes the Leatherman, and I starting clipping bristles by about 1/8†all around, testing the fit as I go. I found my happy medium. Still lots of resistance and tough reversals, but at a reasonable amount. I was able to feel the transition from rigid to flex pipe, but now as it’s getting dark out and I am thoroughly soot-covered, I wonder if all the trouble was worth it. So I head to the basement and see just how worth it my efforts really were. Wow, that’s a lot of ???. Creosote? Or just fly ash? Very, very fine powder. At any rate, I am convinced; I will be an annual sweeper.
Before sweeping, I removed the top bricks and insulation blankets. The bricks are fine, but the blankets seem fragile and a bit matted. Any opinions on this? Should I just replace them now, while I have it all apart? How long do your blankets last?
Also chipped out some monster size clinkers from burning Homefire Logs. I love those logs for overnight burns, but the deposits are really something else. As they burn, I can see molten droplets of mineral(?) deposits collecting on the floor bricks.
Besides still needing to vacuum out the offset box, and reinstall the bricks and blankets, I would call this a successful first sweep. If nothing else, definitely a learning experience! Thanks to Hearth.com’s always helpful posters. Even if I don’t post much, I always enjoy reading here.
