Hot Shots

[soupy1957]

I'm sure this has been covered before in here, and some enterprising (lazy?) person will just point me to an existing thread, but for us "newbies" in here...........grant us a tad more room to talk about this............

Hot Shots (or equivalent products)..........are they worth it (say for a "once a month" application), for keeping the creosote buildup down?

How do they work? What's going on in my stove flue when those things are lit? Not looking for a chemical analysis here.........just wondering what's in that stuff, and how does it do what it do? (intentionally bad english).

-Soupy1957

 

[BrotherBart]

What are they and what do they claim to do?

 

[soupy1957]

Hot Shots (apparently) are sticks that you throw into your wood stove every now and then, and they reportedly are a burnable substance that reduces, removes, eliminates Creosote in your chimney (or so they say).

-Soupy1957

 

[sapratt]

If your burn wood that is seasoned wood you won't have a problem cleaning the chimney. I've seen those sticks and logs you can burn not sure if they work.
The impression I got from those is that they don't clean the chimney it dries the creasote so it make it easier to clean.
I always figured if you burn wood that is dry enough then you don't need to worry about that.

 

[soupy1957]

Just to give you an idea, in support of what you are saying, "no man," ..............

I check my wood before I burn it, ....to ensure that it is at 20% or less "moisture content" (with a meter), and I don't burn trash.

That being said, I don't get much creosote over time.

The potential therefore, for a chimney fire is relatively small, BUT .............since this season's burning will be more or less 24/7 for the first time, I want to ensure that I DON'T burn the house down, and so I can:

A) Pay a Chimney Sweep to come out every month
B) Pay a Chimney Sweep to come out in the Fall and Spring
C) Buy the chimney cleaning brushes and piss the wife off, who no longer wants me "on the roof"
D) Burn Hot Shots as a "every couple of weeks" preventative AND have a Chimney Sweep come
out in the Fall and Spring.
E) Do nothing, and wait for a chimney fire.


Of all the above choices, and for a couple of reasons, (the wife is one), I'm thinking option D.

You?

-Soupy1957

 

[BrotherBart]

If it feels go do it. Can't hurt anything that I know.

By the way. I don't know why you would want a sweep to come in the Fall and the Spring. Unless you are burning in the summer there isn't going to be anything to sweep in the Fall if it was swept in the Spring.

 

[soupy1957]

BrotherBart:

Makes sense, I suppose. Have him come by and do his thing in the Spring, when I'm all done "burning" and it SHOULD be all set for the Fall. Perhaps a BETTER idea, might be to have him come out during the January "thaw" we get around here most years, when the roof may be a tad safer. Just to check things out for the second half of the burning cycle.

-Soupy1957

 

[sapratt]

Never looked at it like that soupy thanks

 

[BrotherBart]

That is what I do Soupy. I sweep it sometime before the burning season starts and then again on a decent day in January. Truth be known it never needs it in January and with the old legs getting wobbly this will probably be the first year to just blow off the mid-season brushing. There just hasn't been anything in there the last three years to justify it. But since I was up there I did it anyway.

Rest. In four years on this Forum I have not seen anybody say they had a chimney fire with dry wood and an EPA stove. Fact. In a lot of ways talk of chimney fires are just as outdated as talk of not burning pine. And I should know. I had a lot of chimney fires before I lined that sucker and put in an EPA stove and started making sure that wood was really dry. Chimney fire is the least of my worries after four years of burning in that setup.

Burn hot. Burn clean. Don't go falling off of roofs for no reason.

 

[madrone]

There was a tub of "creosote removing powder" left here when I bought the place. Also a spray bottle of "soot remover". I've since thrown away them both.

 

[soupy1957]

Worthy comments all........

No man: I just like the idea of being sure that my system is sound.........I've invested too much in my life/home/wife, to see it burned up because I wasn't SURE my system was safe.

Brother Bart: Sounds like you've been around the barn. The advantage of my EPA-Rated stove is only seen when I close off the damper and get that "second burn" going, correct? For whatever reason, (not for lack of trying), I don't get a good burn when I close down the damper completely. Therefore I CAN force the "second burn" but the fire won't sustain long.
That being the case, the "EPA" rating of my stove is not as much a "plus" as one might think. It's made well, it's sturdy, I can burn HOT for SURE (and usually do.........there may be those out there who think I burn TOO hot in fact, too often).
I'm not sure how the "overnight" burn is going to go (for example). This season of 24/7 burning will be interesting.

Madrone: Did you ever attempt to USE the supplies left behind? Tell me about that experience.

-Soupy1957

 

[madrone]

I used the creosote powder religiously the first year, a little the next year or 2, and not at all after that. I couldn't tell much difference when sweeping. Dry wood makes much more of a difference. The soot cleaner did a great job on the glass, but so does a wet newspaper.

 

[soupy1957]

"I" found that a paper towel works terrifically at cleaning the glass on my wood stove door. No chemicals, .......just dry paper towels (soft ones).

I read a 1981 report this morning, from Mother Earth News, that said that after a very detailed and exhaustive study of various types of widely available Creosote Chimney Cleaning Solutions, they found that they could not attribute any unique clean conditions to ANY of the chemicals used in the testing.

Interesting!!

-Soupy1957

 

[firefighterjake]

That is what I do Soupy. I sweep it sometime before the burning season starts and then again on a decent day in January. Truth be known it never needs it in January and with the old legs getting wobbly this will probably be the first year to just blow off the mid-season brushing. There just hasn't been anything in there the last three years to justify it. But since I was up there I did it anyway.

Rest. In four years on this Forum I have not seen anybody say they had a chimney fire with dry wood and an EPA stove. Fact. In a lot of ways talk of chimney fires are just as outdated as talk of not burning pine. And I should know. I had a lot of chimney fires before I lined that sucker and put in an EPA stove and started making sure that wood was really dry. Chimney fire is the least of my worries after four years of burning in that setup.

Burn hot. Burn clean. Don't go falling off of roofs for no reason.

Truer words have perhaps never been spoken . . . I haven't been here as long as BB, but it seems like the only folks who I see in my career/hobby having problems with chimney fires are folks who a) never bother cleaning their chimneys, b) burn unseasoned wood . . . and I mean very unseasoned wood . . . as in cut this summer or spring, split over the summer and burned this fall or c) folks who are using the old stoves that starved the fire for oxygen for those overnight burns.

The true and simple truth . . . to avoid chimney fires . . . clean your chimney regularly, inspect it often (I tend to inspect and sweep once a month since it's wicked easy for me to do so, but truthfully doing so at the start of the season and once halfway through winter is probably fine for an experienced wood burner), only burn seasoned wood and burn at the proper temps (not too hot, not too cold).

As for the magical powders, logs, solutions and old wives tales . . . save your money and buy something more useful.

 

[thewoodlands]

I'm sure this has been covered before in here, and some enterprising (lazy?) person will just point me to an existing thread, but for us "newbies" in here...........grant us a tad more room to talk about this............

Hot Shots (or equivalent products)..........are they worth it (say for a "once a month" application), for keeping the creosote buildup down?

How do they work? What's going on in my stove flue when those things are lit? Not looking for a chemical analysis here.........just wondering what's in that stuff, and how does it do what it do? (intentionally bad english).

-Soupy1957

Last year was my first year heating with wood and I found this (the spray) works great, I bought it at my local hearth shop.

http://saversystems.com/chimney-products/acs-anti-creo-soot

zap