Chimney Access (with pictures)

[Lumber-Jack]

Because my chimney sits near the top of a steep metal roof it is particularly hard to access for inspections or cleaning. I tried my best to assure myself that I was burning properly for the last couple months and would have very little creosote build up to worry about, but the fact that it was so difficult to access was bugging the heck out of me. Unfortunately there was no way I could just lean a ladder up to take a peak, I had to invent some sort of temporary framework in which to gain safe access to my chimney and I wasn't going to stop thinking about it until I did.

So here is what I came up with. Chimney Access

It is only temporary, I already have a plan for building a more permanent, less obtrusive, solution for getting access, but in the meantime this works great and I can stop thinking about it for a while.

 

[begreen]

That'll work, though it's missing OSHA guard rails .

 

[Highbeam]

A nice pair of rubber soled sneakers and a dryish day, why don't you just walk up it? Must be steeper than it looks.

 

[awoodman]

looks like a new aplication, in other words a clean roof. Both mine and my dads metal roof has the paint coming off after a few yrs. of burning. The rain and ice will cause the residue off the cap to drip on the roof and eat the paint off. >:-(

 

[LeonMSPT]

That's a nice roof... ladder it at the peak and walk the ridge, when there is no snow or ice up there... piece of cake...

 

[Corey]

Nice scenery - surprised you didn't just do the high-wire act and walk across the ridge beam Guess I've really lucked out with a 4/12 roof...it's more like walking on a deck up there....but then the view isn't nearly as nice as yours!

 

[LeonMSPT]

I've done that foolish stuff wearing full turnout gear, SCBA, two "Goody bags" in one pocket of my turnout coat, and a chain and window weight in my hands.... get wobbly? Drop on your knees and get a hand on each side of the ridge and crawl. Be real careful when you get to the chimney. They're sometimes hanging there by a thread, and leaning or pulling on it might break it, or parts of it, loose. This bodes poorly for the fool standing down below looking up at you... holler, "Head's UP!", and they should step into the side of the house under the overhang and wait until the stuff is all on the ground.

Stand up, drop the window weight in the top of the chimney, and let if fall.... hang onto the chain dopey. When it stops, if it's not on the bottom of the chimney, bring it up five or so feet, and drop 'er again. Do this until the chain is used up or the thing hits the bottom of the chimney. Now, pull it back out... chain's hot... might even get hot on through your turnout gloves... when it's all out, and you see the weight in one hand. Take those "Goody Bags" one at a time and drop them right down the chimney...

Fire's out... hang around awhile until things cool off to make sure. Go clean up and put the stuff away, or respond directly to the next chimney fire. We had five in one night a few years back. No water, no property damage except some smoke which we vented out with fans in one house... chimney become absolutely plugged... took seven drops with the weight to bust through it.

 

[savageactor7]

I dunno...too hairy for me to do on a regular basis, those move are for bachelors. Very inventive though..props to you for coming up with that solution. Cause I bet there's a lot of peeps out there in this same situation that may not be as attentive to cleaning.

If it were me I put some kind of cap on that would allow me to clean it from the bottom...or just leave the cap off. I understand some areas require a screen or cap.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Thanks for the replies, I'll try and respond to some of the comments.

First, I did have to straddle the ridge to get the wood supports in place, but there is no way you can reach the chimney to remove the cap or clean it from the ridge, and you have to be very careful to not actually step on the ridge cap as it won't support any weight without bending.
As for rubber shoes and walking right up the roof, this is possible with the right shoes (which I don't have) and on an ideal day and a perfectly clean roof (no water, no frost, no snow, no ice, no loose ash from the chimney). This was the first day the roof had been clean and dry enough for me to attempt straddling the ridge. The day before was frosty, and for about two months before that the roof had snow on it. We just recently had a significant thaw that brought all the snow down and it warmed up enough during the day to dry the morning frost off. In fact it snowed again that night, sort of melted the next day and today it is very frosty.
On a side note, when I was installing the metal roofing I looked high and low for a set of Wallaby shoes that have the soft rubber (crepe) soles for walking on the metal roofing, but found nothing that would work. I did buy a pair of shoes that had sort of soft soles, and they sort of worked, but as soon as they got a bit of dirt on them they lost all their traction.

The long and short of it is I was doing all this to be able to check and clean my chimney, and eventually, before I totally remove this scaffold, I plan to install some permanent metal supports for the planks and a permanent ladder on the rear side of the roof that I can access off the other flat roof which has access to my attic space where I plan to store the planks, chimney cleaning brush and poles. I'm thinking long term here, I want to have a "SAFE" way to access the chimney anytime of the year in any weather conditions.
I'm no stranger to scaffolding and working on roofs, but I have a lot of respect for metal roofs, especially when snow and ice are involved. If I wasn't as concerned with safety as I was, I probably wouldn't bother to check the chimney.

Thanks awoodman for the heads up on the paint peeling problem, that's all the more reason for me to have easy access up there, perhaps I'll be more incline to clean the chimney cap and roof regularly and hold off some off that corrosion problem.

Also been thinking I should put a screen in my chimney cap, but without easy access to the chimney to install it or clean it that wasn't going to happen, now I have that option.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

An update

I performed my second chimney cleaning of this winter season, not so much because I felt it needed it, but more out of curiosity and since I had already set some scaffold up for access it was very easy to jump up there and do it again.
As usual I took pictures of the most of the process and noticed a few things I felt were worth bringing up in this forum.
Earlier in this thread Awoodman replied about how clean my roof looked and gave a sort of warning about how the paint was coming off his, and his fathers, metal roofs from the residue coming off the chimney. Well this last time up on the roof I noticed some liquid creosote splatter and drips on the roof that Awoodman was talking about, so I took a bucket of soapy water up with me and cleaned off the roof. It actually came off very easy, so it wasn't much more work other than carrying the water up on the roof, but I guess I will have to add this to my regular maintenance every time I go up there.
One last word about this worth mentioning is that I had previously burned for 2 months and didn't have any of this liquid creosote drips on the roof. This last time only just over 3 weeks had gone by and now there was some and what was even more odd is that it was all on one side of the chimney, not all around the chimney, and it seemed to have been blown farther that dripping straight down. In the last three weeks I had been trying to burn cooler because the weather had warmed up a lot compared to the previous couple months, but the fact that all this liquid seemed to be blown to one side rather than straight down off the cap indicates to me that the liquid creosote is more likely to be formed when there is a wind blowing.
Anyway, it is something for people with wood chimneys and metal roofs to think about.
Another maintenance chore I took care of was cleaning the blower fan on the back of my wood stove. I was surprised at how dirty it had gotten in such a short time. I somehow don't imagine that these are the kinds of things that normally would get done had I just hired a chimney sweep.
Any chimney sweeps out there who would like to chime in and tell us if they ever clean the creosote off people's roofs or clean the blower fans on people stoves as part of their regular chimney service?

If you bothered to read this far you might want to look at the updated pictures.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

I didn't get any answer to my last question "Any chimney sweeps out there who would like to chime in and tell us if they ever clean the creosote off people’s roofs or clean the blower fans on people stoves as part of their regular chimney service? ", so I rephrase it and ask again.

Has anybody ever hired a chimney sweep that would clean the creosote off the roof (metal obviously) and cleaned out the stove fan as part of there regular chimney cleaning service?

 

[Dix]

Yes, just this Friday past.

He cleaned the cap out, brushed off all the connections, swept the chimney, reattached the cap (I was on the back deck), took the baffle out of the stove, cleaned all of the stove, removed plates, vacummed, etc. Then he cleaned the fan, the surround, the tile hearth, my floor, and his blankets before packing up.

I expected to do the vacumming after he left.

And I thought $125 was reasonable, considering where I live, etc.

Worked for me

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Sounds like a heck of a deal.
Did he actually take the fan off the stove and take it apart and clean the dust off the fan mechanisms inside?