Don't cringe but this has served me well through the years...I've found if I burn lighter fluid or gas into the chimney pipe every couple months while burning rids the creosote before it builds up too much spontaneously and becomes dangerous.
Call me crazy, but that method has served me well leaving little or no residual to clean out yearly. I've been doing that for decades without any issues (and little to no yearly cleanout issues when I had to burn tons of pine.). I typically do one burn, run to the next floor and into the attic to check for heat transfer and burn a couple more times until I hear it catch, roar and draw. If it's been too long, I do a cleanout the traditional, messy way to start with a clean slate. I started doing this due to having a spontaneous fire wayyy back. I'd rather have a chimney fire when I choose rather than it happening when I'm not ready. The past three houses had an endless supply of pine so I was always concerned with creosote and did very well managing it this way. This year I have to buy or find free supplies of hardwoods, since I have few trees on my 1/2 acre, so creosote won't be as big of a deal (although I still plan to burn it out every couple months).
Call me crazy, but that method has served me well leaving little or no residual to clean out yearly. I've been doing that for decades without any issues (and little to no yearly cleanout issues when I had to burn tons of pine.). I typically do one burn, run to the next floor and into the attic to check for heat transfer and burn a couple more times until I hear it catch, roar and draw. If it's been too long, I do a cleanout the traditional, messy way to start with a clean slate. I started doing this due to having a spontaneous fire wayyy back. I'd rather have a chimney fire when I choose rather than it happening when I'm not ready. The past three houses had an endless supply of pine so I was always concerned with creosote and did very well managing it this way. This year I have to buy or find free supplies of hardwoods, since I have few trees on my 1/2 acre, so creosote won't be as big of a deal (although I still plan to burn it out every couple months).