Chimney cleaning / PH

[Flamestead]

Did my first chimney sweep today since we've had the Progress Hybrid. It is a 6" flex liner, 32', insulated. The previous non-EPA stove got me in the habit of cleaning the liner the first weekend of each month, and I'd get 3-4 cups worth of black, coarse creasote, with most of it coming from the top 2 feet. Today's cleaning yielded about a 1/4 cup of finer black powder. I bet if I had run the brush up and down again right after the last cleaning I would have collected almost the same amount. This is after feeding about 1.8 cords through the PH (full cords). Needless to say, I'm rather pleased, and if this becomes a trend I'll be stretching the time out between cleanings.

 

[pen]

That is very good results!

Out of curiosity and for comparison, what was the previous non-epa stove you were running?

pen

 

[BrotherBart]

I am still reeling from "nine fireplaces".

 

[Flamestead]

It was a Tempwood. It was the stove my wife grew up with, and after many years of storage, we ran it for about 8 years. Very nice, simple stove, but clearly not as efficient (I kept running outside to gaze at the smokeless chimney the first week we had the PH because it was such an oddity to me).

 

[Flamestead]

I am still reeling from "nine fireplaces".

1790's vintage, two internal chimneys, 4 fireplaces per chimney (2 per floor), plus a summer kitchen in the basement. Both the regular kitchen and the summer kitchen also have bread ovens. On the second floor, above the kitchen bread oven, is a small room within the chimney where they smoked meat (two or three people could squeeze in there at once). The chimney sweep said there were at least 7 flues on that chimney. All the fireplaces have insulation stuffed into the flue and a sheet of metal over the top of each chimney.

Just imagine feeding them all, back in the day. Looking at the hearth clearance I'm amazed the place is still standing.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Just imagine how much wood it took to keep some of them going! Then if you think about how they put that wood up then...... Wow! That must have been a full time job in the winter months.