Any suggestions - chimney cleaning a Vermont Castings Montpelier?

[erbenson]

So we've had a VC Montpelier for several years and we've always had a chimney sweep come to do an annual cleaning. I'd like to clean it myself from the bottom if possible.

We pull the bars and baffle and use Cree-Away after almost every fire.

In looking inside the fire box with the baffle removed, the coupler between the top of the firebox and stainless steel liner has a bar across the middle. I've tried a combination of poly and steel brushes, but have not found anything that has fit around the bar, but still been able to clean the sides of the liner.

Any tips? Would the standard Rutland sectional rods have the flexibility to clean from the bottom up?

 

[begreen]

A sooteater should fit between the bar and pipe pretty easily. Many folks here are bottom-up cleaning with a rotary brush like this.
(broken link removed)

 

[canboy]

I pulled this from one of my previous posts....it happens to refer to the product posted by begreen.

Cleaning the Montpelier from the bottom is not difficult at all(if you have a SS liner top to bottom). I always do it that way. Pull the cotter pins on the front two Secondary Air tubes, and remove. Then slide out the baffle. Then you have access to the liner for cleaning. The only catch is that there is likely a "drawdown bar" splitting the liner opening in half that may make it difficult to get a brush through. I use a Gardus Sooteater Rotary Chimney cleaning system - it fits past the drawdown bar and into the chimney opening, very easily. Just google it. They are available on Amazon, Home Depot (about $60)...etc. Look on YouTube for videos of the Gardus system and other similar products. I drape a large towel (keep it snug) over the opening of the stove, so that as soot/ash falls down the chimney into the stove, it doesn't fly into the room. At most, after a season of burning, I get about 3-5 cups of ash. I've been doing that for the past 10 years, with no issue.

 

[Mike508]

Kind of a nit picky thing, but I always have problems removing the cotter pins that hold in my secondary baffles when cleaning my Montpelier. They are in a tight space, near the fragile baffle. I thought the problem was that I over bent them when reinstalling, but found that the heat from the fire box bends them. Anyone find an easy way to remove them or a better removable solution for holding the secondary tubes in?

 

[SculptureOfSound]

I removed the cotter pins and left them out. Tubes sit securely unless heavily jarred, as they fit fairly deep into the holes in either side.

As for cleaning, yup a soot eater fits around the drawdown bar and makes it easy to clean