Chimney inspection after 48Hrs

[Maj92az]

All of it is pretty new to me. I have about 36-48 hours of burn time in my new Pacific energy. Probably 4 or 5 fires total.

I went up on my roof- easy. And took a look at my cap and down the stove pipe. I wouldnt say any of the build up is tar like. Its almost identical to ash. Extremely powdery if you touch it. But has a dark color. Is this normal? Is this considered creosote? Especially this soon?

I then went to my stove. You can see more of it in there. Should I remove my lower pipe connected to the stove and inspect there too?

 

[Maj92az]

I took the pipe off. That's right above the collar. What am I doing wrong?? I have 14.5 ft of chimney. I am burning year + seasoned tamarack (pnw). I suppose I am having semi cool fires.. but at times I often see no smoke...very light mild smoke when I got a good burn. Plus if I get a kit to sweep myself.. from the top?? Itll all fall onto the stove but not land into the fire area due to the stoves configuration. Is that ok

 

[begreen]

Looks normal. That is sooty ash. The black soot indicated a pretty cool fire. Our baffle is usually reddish or ash-colored. Now that it is getting colder you will be burning full load fires at a higher temp. Do you have any thermometers on the stovetop or stovepipe?

If you are cleaning this yourself, what tools and what procedure will you be doing?

 

[Maj92az]

OK thanks. Yeah it was a bit alarming. I'm sure some of my early (and present) practices aren't the best yet.

Yeah that stuff is super fluffy. When I brush it.. it doesn't even fall it rises with the tiny bit of heat I have rising. Like I said ill be improving, such as a hot fire first thing then calm her down..

I don't have a thermometer yet or a probe. I'll like to a fairly inexpensive one. Other than a laser pointer. I don't have any tools for a sweep either. I wouldn't mind to do it myself soon though.. or have them on hand. My roof is easy to walk on. Other than that I'm all ears on stove maintenance.

 

[begreen]

A stovetop and stovepipe thermometer are very helpful tools for proper operation of the stove. Is this single-wall stovepipe?

 

[Maj92az]

Its double wall duravent. I could easily get a stove top thermometer. Although I've noticed a big difference up top near the collar vs few inches away. Is a insert thermometer preferred? Or can I learn to reference my stove top temperature to determine the temp going up the pipe.

 

[begreen]

If I had to have only one, I would get a probe thermometer for the stovepipe. It tells you more about how the fire is burning. Take a look at the Starting a Fire thread at the top of this forum in the stickies section to see how stovetop vs probe temps correlate.

 

[Maj92az]

My stove store can sell me a condor flurgard thermometer pretty cheap (less than Amazon). If that'll get me going I'll pick it up tomorrow. I'm sure there are some instructions..but any advice on the installation? Height and considerations.
I also want to pick up my own sweep kit. I forgot to look at my stove while cool- I hope there is a way to allow the debris to fall all the way into the firebox. I can, but rather not slide my pipe up each time. Especially if I were to do it few times a season.

Side note. I've began to take note how my stove likes to burn- Especially at the start. I managed to keep my glass much cleaner. I'm sure that's a indication something is burning a bit better.

 

[begreen]

There should be instructions with the thermometer. You will be drilling a smaller hole through both layers of the double-wall stovepipe then a slightly larger hole in the outer layer of the stovepipe only. A small ferule is put in the hole, then the thermometer is inserted. It is placed 18-24" above the stovetop.

 

[Tron]

That was quite a fight getting that thing in there. My own fault, though. As I'm not originally from around here, all my tools are metric. And yes, a 6mm drill does not exactly equal 1/4"...