Cleaning your chimney

[Nick Mystic]

I have a sooteater, but clean my flue from the top down, so no problem with debris getting into my drill. The instructions talk about putting a plastic bag with a hole in it for the rod to go through when you clean from the bottom up. I wondered how you would keep the bag from getting wrapped around the spinning rods, but maybe if you used a thicker bag that wouldn't be a problem. Others have mentioned cutting a hole in a large plastic jug to catch the soot falling down the flue. Either of those methods would likely eliminate or greatly minimize the problem of soot getting into drills. Also, if you have access to an air compressor you could always blow out the drill when you finish.

 

[Treacherous]

Never been worried about harming my $28 cordless HF drill. Maybe if I had something nicer? I also have not had a problem with bag wrapping around rods. It goes through a slit in plastic that I have taped with painters tape on front of stove. I have had a couple broken black rods but the original white ones have held up well. Keep the clutch setting low and you shouldn't have a problem breaking one off if you get a bind.

 

[fire_man]

t

it goes through a slit in plastic that I have taped with painters tape on front of stove.

Sounds like you are shoving the rods up inside the stove if you are taping the plastic to the front of the stove. Plastic sheets over the base of a "T" bind up pretty easy if your not careful and tape really well.

My drill ends up looking like it was dunked in a tub of soot by the time I'm done, and blowing it off is useless. I have to clean it with turpentine. I wonder if it's because my soot is the greasy black kind, rather than the nice powdery white stuff others report.

 

[Treacherous]

I'm usually a pole length outside of the front of the stove before it goes through the taped on plastic. I open up the bypass on my Lopi and it goes right up.

t


Sounds like you are shoving the rods up inside the stove if you are taping the plastic to the front of the stove. Plastic sheets over the base of a "T" bind up pretty easy if your not careful and tape really well.

My drill ends up looking like it was dunked in a tub of soot by the time I'm done, and blowing it off is useless. I have to clean it with turpentine. I wonder if it's because my soot is the greasy black kind, rather than the nice powdery white stuff others report.

 

[Abunker11]

Hopefully it's okay to jump in with this question, closely related. I want to install my Quadrafire 4300 in my basement where the old oil furnace was. The pipe is Metalbestos SSII rated to 2100 degrees so that is good I think. I have 2 options for connecting. The flue terminates in the basement with a T so I could connect the wood stove to the horizontal opening of the T. But I began to think that for cleaning the creosote it might make more sense to attach vertically to the bottom of the T so that when I clean the pipe all the creosote will fall neatly into the stove where I can then collect it for disposal. Or does it make sense to have the straight down vertical cleanout available for a professional to come in and hook up to for cleaning. Don't they have vacuums that will do that?I am undecided on whether I want to do my own cleaning or pay our local sweep. My chimney is also long since it goes from basement through two stories and out . Luckily we have a dormer roof and I don't mind getting up there to work.

 

[Crizzoft]

Used my sooteater today on my 30' 6" flex. Wasn't as much of a pain as I thought. Clipping the rods was the trickiest part. My cordless drill did fine with it. I bought two kits and am pleased with how it worked