Chimney brush

[MCC]

I've been burning non stop since October with a new Princess 32. I noticed a lot of smoke spillage yesterday morning during a reload and climbed up on the roof after work. I noticed the cap was at least half way plugged with flaky puffy black creosote. I knocked this loose and the stove seems to be behaving normal again. I was planning on buying a chimney sweep kit for the end of the burn season but feel I better get one ordered now and sweep it. My chimney is 14' tall with 2 45's. What would you guys recommend for a brush/kit? Should I use poly or metal? The installer told me to get a half brush because of the 45's, but I didn't find one at Menards. Any recommendations?

TIA,
Dan

 

[Highbeam]

I've been burning non stop since October with a new Princess 32. I noticed a lot of smoke spillage yesterday morning during a reload and climbed up on the roof after work. I noticed the cap was at least half way plugged with flaky puffy black creosote. I knocked this loose and the stove seems to be behaving normal again. I was planning on buying a chimney sweep kit for the end of the burn season but feel I better get one ordered now and sweep it. My chimney is 14' tall with 2 45's. What would you guys recommend for a brush/kit? Should I use poly or metal? The installer told me to get a half brush because of the 45's, but I didn't find one at Menards. Any recommendations?

TIA,
Dan

Your chimney isn't long enough to meet the minimum in the manual so smoke spillage will be more likely even when it's totally clean.

Do you have a bird screen in the cap getting clogged? If so, I would consider removing it if you can. They clog up at the worst time even when you're doing everything right.

Lots of us use sooteater brand chimney sweeping systems. You feed these up through the firebox and into the pipe. No need to get on the roof. They easily go through 45 degree bends.

 

[MCC]

I removed the bird cage before my first fire. This smoke spillage was 10 times the normal amount. I do notice the cap seems to have smaller slits than other cap pics I’ve seen.

 

[MCC]

One thing I did notice was all the creosote I knocked off was hanging from the cap surfaces and not built up. Like black ice sickles only not ice.

 

[Highbeam]

I removed the bird cage before my first fire. This smoke spillage was 10 times the normal amount. I do notice the cap seems to have smaller slits than other cap pics I’ve seen.

Your chimney cap has small slits? That sounds horribly restrictive and difficult to clean.

My chimney cap will get creosicles from the top of the cap. Sometimes they come off if they are brittle but often they are very hard to remove like a super hard tar. Luckily, they don't block flow through my relatively open duravent caps.

 

[MCC]

This is what my chimney cap looks like. A slot around the bottom and one at the top. I was not able to stick my hand through the slots, so not overly large. Is this typical or not? All of the slots had crap blocking them.