After about two weeks of burning in my new non cat EPA stove I caught a nice day today and had to pop the chimney cap off to see what I had in the pipe. I have been burning mostly at night and one 48 hour or so burn. What I found was a light brown hazing or thin dusting. I could stick my arm down the pipe and wipe it around the sides and come out with a small amount of dust on my arm that was easily wiped off with my hand. I believe this is probably OK but the top and sides of the ceramic fiber blankets were black. Is this normal? Can I clean them?
Am I doing this right?
- Thread starter Steve M
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Backwoods Savage
Minister of Fire
Steve, it is typical to get some soot early in the season but that does not sound as if it is worth concerning you. As soon as you get some good steady fires and a bit hotter that should go right away.
firefighterjake
Minister of Fire
+1 to Dennis' comments . . . and don't worry about the blanket . . . it will get dirty and covered in fly ash . . . I clean the top of the baffle and blanket (very carefully) once a year at the start of the burning season . . . just vacuuming up the fly ash . . . as for the flue . . . sounds typical . . . especially for burning in the shoulder season.
Yep, the stuff you were looking at has no danger associated to it. The black gooey stuff is a whole different story.
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