Chimney Cleaning

[lukem]

The temperature finally cracked the freezing mark for a couple days in a row and the snow melted from the roof. Heavy rain expected the next couple days so I took the opportunity to inspect and clean the chimney.

I was fearing the worst because the outside of the chimney was covered in brown goo, dripping onto the rain collar, and the cap had some small creosote stalactites forming. When I got up there I was bummed to find the cap was fused on. After some persuasion the cap came off and looked down the flue to find the dreaded shiny black stuff. @#$%^. @#$%%&*. *&((&&^%^& **(&&*(((&^%$#$#.

So I climb back down get the flashlight to see how far down the creosote goes, questioning my burning prowess and wood quality the whole way. Shine the light down and find it to only be in the top 16" of flue. Phew. Run the brush down the rest of the flue...sounds like brush on bare metal most of the way. Pull the cap of the cleanout and get 1" of fine dry powder in the 8" cleanout cap.

Pulled the stove pipe (double wall) and found a touch of crunch black creosote in the apex of the elbow connector and some where the DSP meets class A. Thin coating of brown powder everywhere else. 1/2 cup max total.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this considering the through the wall, no-insulated chase, and old smoke dragon blaze king. I started burning mid-November and the chimney was cleaned at the end of last burning season.

I'll plan on cleaning again at the end of January just because the stage 3 at the top has me paranoid.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Lukem, the chase is over-rated. We also have a through the wall flue and no chase. We also have a shorter than normal chimney but we still get along just fine.

It is very normal for the top of the chimney to be black and the cap with creosote. Clean it up and put it back on and you'll probably do just fine. However, do not let this lesson go un-noticed! When you get creosote like that it tells you that your wood could be a bit better. That is why I usually recommend folks have a 2-3 year wood supply on hand always. Then they do not have to be concerned whether or not their wood is good as it will be good after 2-3 years.

FWIW, we are on our 4th season since installing the new stove and new chimney. We've cleaned it one time. My wife still checks the chimney quite regularly and always comes back in and says it is still clean! That is nice, especially when I remember our old stove and cleaning the chimney 2-3 times each winter.

 

[lukem]

Since this was only my second season so burning good wood has been a challenge. I think I can trace the crosote to some cherry that got put on the wrong stack. It was cut from downed timer in October and was probably holding more moisture than it should have. Burning some nice elm that was dead with bark off this spring from here on out so I should see an improvement. I'm now 3 years ahead and plan on staying that way.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

3 years ahead and you are like a King! Sounds great.