First chimney cleaning, a lot of soot?

[joecool85]

I have 20ft of chimney and double wall stove pipe (15ft DuraPlus + 5ft double wall inside). We have burned about 3 cords of wood through our Englander 17-VL. Almost all of the wood was well seasoned and had been C/S/S at least 2 years, but hadn't been covered and 1/3 or so of it was pretty wet. The wood was mostly soft woods (pine, willow, alder in that order) with a little birch, apple and maple mixed in. I used my new Soot Eater to clean the chimney and I got a full quart out of the chimney, is that a lot? It sure seems like it to me, but I'm new to the whole wood burning thing. What do you guys think?

Oh yeah, no pics, but the removed soot was almost granular in appearance and was dark black. It reminded me of coffee grounds. The chimney now looks great, just sort of "dusty" instead of shiny and new.

 

[Hogwildz]

That amount is not the worst, but the color and texture are not the greatest.
Sounds like not hot enough fires or not dry enough wood.
You want to see more like fly ash....gray or even brown color, more fine than coffee grounds, almost like a powder.
Still not too bad, and it will get better as you the user, gets more seasoned to the stove.

 

[joecool85]

That amount is not the worst, but the color and texture are not the greatest.
Sounds like not hot enough fires or not dry enough wood.
You want to see more like fly ash....gray or even brown color, more fine than coffee grounds, almost like a powder.
Still not too bad, and it will get better as you the user, gets more seasoned to the stove.

Good to know. I'm blaming it primarily on the wood and secondarily on my wife who (until a month ago) didn't know how to get the stove properly up to temp and THEN back it down. For 40 hours/wk she is the one running the stove while I'm at work. I can't give her too much of a hard time, she's taken really well to it now and is a real pro. Hopefully I will get better results next year.

 

[Hogwildz]

That amount is not the worst, but the color and texture are not the greatest.
Sounds like not hot enough fires or not dry enough wood.
You want to see more like fly ash....gray or even brown color, more fine than coffee grounds, almost like a powder.
Still not too bad, and it will get better as you the user, gets more seasoned to the stove.

Good to know. I'm blaming it primarily on the wood and secondarily on my wife who (until a month ago) didn't know how to get the stove properly up to temp and THEN back it down. For 40 hours/wk she is the one running the stove while I'm at work. I can't give her too much of a hard time, she's taken really well to it now and is a real pro. Hopefully I will get better results next year.

Sounds like the Mrs. deserves a bouquet of flowers and a nice dinner, just because.... and a thanks and good job on top.
Then tell her to burn it a bit hotter and use drier wood! LOL, No I don't advise the previous sentence.
Even still, you(and she) and doing pretty good. It gets even better.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Joe, if this is your first year of burning I will certainly congratulate you. That isn't bad for 3 cord of wood. As Hogwildz states, brown and gray are much better colors to see but it seems most folks do get black. The fact that you got only a quart speaks well for you though. You no doubt will do much, much better next year. Also, living in Maine, it might be a good idea to top cover the wood. True that some folks never cover their wood but if your area gets lots of moisture then perhaps it is better to cover. We do not cover the first summer and fall but do top cover before the snow flies. We also use galvanized roofing for the top cover. Tarps just don't get the job done and they also usually end up looking awful. Getting wood out from under them when you have a foot or so of snow on top can be a bit testy too.

 

[firefighterjake]

I wouldn't worry about the color or amount . . . most of the time I get some of the coffee ground looking stuff . . . far, far better than the burned popcorn looking stuff or drippy tarry stuff . . . but not as good as fly ash looking stuff. In either case, I really wouldn't worry too much.

 

[joecool85]

Joe, if this is your first year of burning I will certainly congratulate you. That isn't bad for 3 cord of wood. As Hogwildz states, brown and gray are much better colors to see but it seems most folks do get black. The fact that you got only a quart speaks well for you though. You no doubt will do much, much better next year. Also, living in Maine, it might be a good idea to top cover the wood. True that some folks never cover their wood but if your area gets lots of moisture then perhaps it is better to cover. We do not cover the first summer and fall but do top cover before the snow flies. We also use galvanized roofing for the top cover. Tarps just don't get the job done and they also usually end up looking awful. Getting wood out from under them when you have a foot or so of snow on top can be a bit testy too.

It is our first year burning wood. Our wood is now top covered, but most of it didn't get covered until after some snow had been on the ground (and wood), plus some of it had fallen over and was sitting on the ground before we burned it. Now all of our wood is stored in pallet bins and covered with tarps. This summer I will be building more bins and also some sort of roof solution - maybe even just a pallet roof with a tarp tied onto it.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Joe, did you see Pallet Pete's solution? (That is not his screen name.) He did a fine job and very little cost.

 

[joecool85]

Joe, did you see Pallet Pete's solution? (That is not his screen name.) He did a fine job and very little cost.

No I didn't, do you have a link?

**edit**
Did some searching and found this: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/88590/P18/#1080435

Is that the one you meant? If so, that's a larger version of what I was planning on doing. Mine will be made of standard size pallets. 2 pallets wide, one pallet tall, one pallet deep. I have 3 bins like this right now with no tops. They hold 3/4 cord each. I plan on making 3 more to give me a total storage of 4.5 cords. We've burned 3 cords so far this year and I wouldn't be surprised to burn another 1/2 cord or more so I figure 4+ cords should be plenty for most years. We'll have more wood than that but the rest won't be under cover. So if it looks like we are having a tough winter I could always shovel out some wood and reload one of the empty bins.

When they are all done and have roofs on them etc I will have to take some pics to share.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

That is the one Joe.

For sure this year is a low fuel need year. We've burned about 2 cord so far and probably will burn close to another half cord which is a reduction of 1/2 cord for us. However, we put on an addition last summer along with new insulation, windows and doors. That makes a big difference.

 

[wkpoor]

How much creosote you get is directly relative to your chimney height. I see people on quoting rather small amounts when they clean and then find out they have 8' of class A. For 20' thats probably not too bad. I swept today and got a little more than that but stove to cap I'm 41'. If it was the dry flakes or coffee grounds thats good because I don't think that stuff is too flammable.