Cleaned flue in preparation for the snow middle of the week

Decided to clean the flue today in case we get snow even though it really didn't need it and this is all that came out of it, less than a half cup. 19 feet straight up. Did a lot of cold starts this year again and still very little creosote. Hardly any at the top.

I did mine today. Lots of popcorn stuff on the cap, which came off by scraping. No ``fluffy`` stuff in the pipe. Got perhaps 4 cups of granular stuff. 20 feet of pipe straight up. When I ran my chimney sweep, I noticed some drag at the joints where the pipes meet. I guess that`s normal. I was surprised I didn`t have more soot in there, since I have been burning since november, and often times with less than dry wood. This is my first year, and have learned quite a bit from the members on this forum.

I did mine about a month ago. It had been a full year, almost to the day, and I felt like I wasted my time. I suppose it's my own fault, burning all that dry wood. I'm not gonna do it again until next spring, 2014.

I see some guys saying they clean theirs every month or so. What`s up with that?

They might not be burning as clean due to wood, stove or chimney setup. They might have marginal draft to begin with and any buildup will slow it down. It might even be a healthy case of paranoia against chimney fires. I used to use an unlined external masonry chimney and brushed it every month. It didn't take long and kept me happy. If there isn't gunk in the chimney it can't catch on fire.

Matt

Gotcha!

I always recommended that your first year especially with wet wood clean it every month. I get about 1/8 to 1/4 cup at the end of a season now which is very clean for a tube stove. When we where little common knowledge albeit wrong was to light a chimney fire to clean the flue out every month or so. My parents would have saved a lot of grief if they just cleaned the smoke dragon monthly instead. Wet wood in an EPA stove is just as bad and gums the sucker up bad but burn hot and dry and you are golden. Chimney fires in EPA stoves are very very bad you can't cut the air off like our old dragon could. The secondary's flow unrestricted and the primary air requires 10% minimum all this creates a forge effect with a chimney fire. That is the reason why some of us tell new burners to clean monthly better safe than sorry.

Pete

1) Not a bad thing for a newbie to do so they can get a feel with how they are burning

2) For someone in my line of work it would look really, really bad for me to have a chimney fire so I'm anal retentive when it comes to sweeping the chimney and do it every month (plus it's very easy for me as it is a 10-minute job and I never have to leave terra firma.)

You doing everything right then. I suppose it's ok to go a full winter without a sweep but it sure does not hurt a dang thing especially now with the SootEater. My regiment start the season with a sweep, and again in Jan. Most of the time it's not needed in Jan, but a few times I was glad I did.

I just googled Sooteater. I thought it was one of those logs that you burn. Really nice tool! I`m going to have to try and find that tool in our local hardware stores here in Canada.