Alternatives to chimney rods.

[DeePee]

I'm preparing to clean my chimney and have encountered a bit of an issue. The most direct route to the roof where the chimney is located would require a ladder extending to at least 36' and another 10' ladder to reach the chimney cap. I've been advised against the direct route by the old man and members of his crew ( experienced in climbing to difficult locations ) as it won't be safe due to my lack of experience, less than ideal ground conditions and that a quality/safe ladder of that length will be extremely expensive. My alternative is to climb up from the front, however I will need four ladders total to go this route, so I'll need to buy two more. In addition, I'm not overly keen climbing and the four ladder setup leaves plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong.

Cleaning from the bottom up seems like the ideal setup. My wife gave me a poly brush and rods for Christmas, but the rods are too stiff to fit through the bends in my liner.

So, I'm looking for alternatives and so far I've come up with fish-tape and drain auger. I understand these work for smaller diameter pellet pipe, what about a 6" flex liner?

Thanks very much!

 

[fossil]

Here's one option. I have one of these, and it works. Rick

http://www.sooteater.com/

 

[Stevebass4]

i use a sections of 1/2 inch electrical pvc it's like $2.00 at home depot should be flexible enough

got the idea from this post

I could not see spending the going rate of $150 to clean 15' of chimney so I cleaned my own for the first time. I spent 4 hours and ended up a filthy mess, but it only cost me $25 in materials. Use 1/2" electrical PVC conduit. It is much cheaper than the fiberglass rods and probably just as strong and flexible. Put the pieces together and drill a small hole through both pieces and bolt them together (so you can take apart for storage later). Buy a threaded female PVC adapter ($.18) and glue it on the end. Then buy a 1/2" male to 1/4" female brass threaded adapter for $.99 and turn it on the end of the PVC adapter. The brush is 1/4" pipe thread and will turn on the end of this adapter. I used a cheap brush from Menards which is probably why it took me so long but I got it spotless. Take an automotive trouble light and send it down the chimney to check how clean it is all the way down. You can always turn the conduit upside down and use the edge as a scrapper for any gunk the brush won't scrape off. This would be a good time to wear that old Led Zepplen T-shirt your wife hates as she will probably throw it out rather than wash it.

 

[DeePee]

I ended up picking up a 50' coil of 1/2" PEX for $15CDN. I drilled a hole through the braided wires of my poly brush and then cut the 3/8" threaded crimp off the end. I fed this into the end of the PEX and drilled a corresponding hole. I fed a shackle bolt through the hole and wired it in place. Once all the modifications were complete, I realized the brush was 8" and spent a while trimming it down to the appropriate size with a pair of bolt cutters. Worked quite well, though it took quite a bit of force to get around the bends. That SootEater looks nice, but with the base cost, six extensions and shipping to Canada it would end up being pretty expensive.

Thanks for the inspiration all!

Best regards.

 

[pgmr]

I assume you did the cleaning from the bottom. You mentioned in the original post that you have a cap. A lot of the creosote that sticks to your chimney system will be on the cap, since it is the coldest part. Unfortunately, your brush will have little effect on the gunk accumulated on the cap, but with a clean burning stove, hopefully you won't need to clean it that often.

Sounds like that thing is WAY up in the air. I'd get or use a pair of binoculars occasionally to keep an eye on how plugged the cap is getting.

 

[DeePee]

I assume you did the cleaning from the bottom. You mentioned in the original post that you have a cap. A lot of the creosote that sticks to your chimney system will be on the cap, since it is the coldest part. Unfortunately, your brush will have little effect on the gunk accumulated on the cap, but with a clean burning stove, hopefully you won't need to clean it that often.

Sounds like that thing is WAY up in the air. I'd get or use a pair of binoculars occasionally to keep an eye on how plugged the cap is getting.

Good advice on monitoring the cap Kent! So far it is clean and all the openings are unobstructed. Can you help me understand what kind of gunk will accumulate? Is it that it will clog the openings and the brush wont open them up, or perhaps on the outside?

Thanks!

 

[pgmr]

A lot of caps have large mesh screen (heavy wire with large openings) to keep out birds and other critters and to help arrest sparks. If yours doesn't have screening and you don't think you need it, then you'll not have as much accumulation and need even less cleaning.

As far as the "kind of gunk", I can't really answer. I burn an older pre-epa stove and the cap gets a bit of black, tarry creosote that condenses out and hardens on it. Real pain to get off. I've used a torch to burn it off before (on the ground).

 

[glacialhills]

I will second the use of 1/2 inch pvc conduit.All of the conduit and fittings were cheaper than just a couple of those fiberglass rods. It is flexible enough to bend the sections into the stove pipe but stiff enough to run up and down easily. I keep the mess contained by taping a heavy duty garbage bag around the bottom of the stove pipe after i get the brush into the end of it, and then poke a hole in the bag just big enough to keep feeding the pvc through, right by the top of the bag. all the creosote falls into the bottom of the bag as i feed the brush up and down and keeps it all contained. Works great. I keep the sections separate and after I get one 10' section all the way in I screw on the next section. I have over 30 ft. of ss class a chimney and it is a big relief not having to climb up on the roof, especially in the winter with snow up on my steep pitch.I dont understand why anyone would clean one from the top down and take the risk of slipping and falling when it is so easy to do it from the bottom in the comfort of the indoors and all the crap falls right in a bag instead of down into the stove.