Blocked chimney - now what?

[nhcowboy]

I have been burning a Woodstock Soapstone "Palladium" stove for 15 years now - ever since I moved into my house. The house is 200+ years old, and the chimney has a clay liner. I had the chimney cleaned at the end of October '09. The sweep carried away a huge pile of creosote - said it had really needed cleaning. (I usually get it cleaned every year, but had skipped the prior year.) It burned great for about a week or two. Then started to back up smoke - just a little bit, when I opened the door to load in wood.

Well, the "little bit" of smoke got worse & worse, until I finally realized this wasn't normal and called in a chimney sweep again. Different guy, 'cause my usual one was under the weather. Well, this guy worked on it for hours - and finally announced there was a creosote blockage so bad he couldn't get it out. He started talking about cutting through the wall to get to the blockage.

So, my questions are:

(1) How the hell does this happen in just a little over 2 months??? (And, yes, I realize I'm an idiot not to have called someone at the first sign of smoke, but still, that wasn't the cause of this mess.) And, before you ask, all I've burned is ash (cut within the past year) and some other mixed, but very aged wood left over from years past. No garbage, other than newspaper used very rarely to start the fire. (The fire usually burns 24/7, so not a lot of newspaper.)

(2) How do we clear the blockage? Tearing down the house to get to the creosote just seems like a really bad idea . . . but maybe I'm biased - I rather like my house. C'mon, though, there's got to be a way of clearing this. The new sweep is relatively new to the trade, so I'm thinking there must be solutions that he's not familiar with.

Meanwhile, we've got no stove . . . help

 

[fossil]

Maybe it's not just creosote. Was there a bird/critter-proof screened cap up top? Could it be that something got down in there and got stuck and died and provided a place for everything else to collect? Could clay liner tiles/mortar have broken loose, fallen a ways, then collected and clogged it? If the sweep can't push a brush through, then something must be jammed in there pretty firmly. Maybe a team working from top & bottom could bust something loose, dunno, I'm not a sweep. Good luck with it...I hope it can be cleared & everything fixed without major surgery on your historic home. Rick

 

[Todd]

How old is your catalytic combustor?

 

[LLigetfa]

If your masonry chimney is in bad shape, it is possible for it to get plugged up in short order. All it takes is some bad mortar joints that let in cold air onto a concentrated spot of the clay tile, cooling the tile in that one spot. You could also have damaged clay tile.

Your best bet might be to get a more experienced sweep in and a mason to repoint the brick. Also consider busting out the clay tile and pulling in an insulated SS liner.

 

[LLigetfa]

Could it be that something got down in there and got stuck and died...

OMG... has anyone heard from Santa lately?

 

[fossil]

Could it be that something got down in there and got stuck and died...

OMG... has anyone heard from Santa lately?

:lol: :smirk: :ahhh: :roll: :sick:

 

[nhcowboy]

How old is your catalytic combustor?

Two years old.

If your masonry chimney is in bad shape, it is possible for it to get plugged up in short order. All it takes is some bad mortar joints that let in cold air onto a concentrated spot of the clay tile, cooling the tile in that one spot. You could also have damaged clay tile.

Right, we had a chimney fire a couple of years back, and the sweep suggested there might be a cracked tile that was letting cold air in. But the top of the chimney - the part that's exposed - is clear of creosote and has already been given a clean bill of health. The only part that hasn't been examined is the lower part that's currently blocked. That blockage (and the only place the crack could be) is in the part of the chimney that's surrounded by house . . . so where's the "cold air" coming from?

Could it be that something got down in there and got stuck and died...

OMG... has anyone heard from Santa lately?

Okay, anything's possible, but my family doesn't celebrate Christmas.

 

[begreen]

It sounds like the flue needs a liner, but get a certified, experienced sweep with a camera in there to see what is happening first. Could be the tile has collapsed in the flue.

 

[savageactor7]

a creosote blockage so bad he couldn’t get it out

Wow that's hard to believe...Maybe BeGreen is on to something besides creosote blocking your chimney. I'm willing to bet they did not have flue tiles when your house was built and just maybe a few bricks have become dislodged.

Seems to me a balled up chain suspended by a rope would have enough inertia to bash threw a creosote plugged chimney. Did he try that?

 

[quads]

a creosote blockage so bad he couldn’t get it out

Wow that's hard to believe...Maybe BeGreen is on to something besides creosote blocking your chimney. I'm willing to bet they did not have flue tiles when your house was built and just maybe a few bricks have become dislodged.

Seems to me a balled up chain suspended by a rope would have enough inertia to bash threw a creosote plugged chimney. Did he try that?

It's possible the creosote is blocking it that bad. In our old brick chimney when I was a kid, we would have to tie a heavy piece of pipe on the end of the chimney brush rope, then keep slamming it into the creosote blockage from up above until it busted through. Sometimes the brush would get stuck so tight in the chimney that we'd hook the old 1949 Willy's Jeep to it. Even broke the rope a couple times!

 

[nhcowboy]

It's possible the creosote is blocking it that bad. In our old brick chimney when I was a kid, we would have to tie a heavy piece of pipe on the end of the chimney brush rope, then keep slamming it into the creosote blockage from up above until it busted through. Sometimes the brush would get stuck so tight in the chimney that we'd hook the old 1949 Willy's Jeep to it. Even broke the rope a couple times!

That sounds about like where we are - except we haven't tried the '49 Jeep yet! He did get his brush stuck, though - had to leave without it!

The chimney does have a tile liner, by the way - so it's not just brick. But the bottom section of liner (where the blockage is) is pretty old.

 

[webby3650]

It is pretty rare that a clay liner would survive a flue fire, I am yet to inspect one yet, "that actually had a full on flue fire"that didn't have pretty severe cracks. BeGreen is right on, get it inspected by a CSIA Certified Sweep, it is possible that the first sweep pushed the creosote down, unknowingly, forming a blockage that got progressively worse. Although, an inspection after cleaning would have eliminated this.

 

[Shari]

It's possible the creosote is blocking it that bad. In our old brick chimney when I was a kid, we would have to tie a heavy piece of pipe on the end of the chimney brush rope, then keep slamming it into the creosote blockage from up above until it busted through. Sometimes the brush would get stuck so tight in the chimney that we'd hook the old 1949 Willy's Jeep to it. Even broke the rope a couple times!

And you are alive to tell this story? You are truly blessed, Quads!

Shari

 

[Hurricane]

My brother had the clay liner flake off and collapse in the chimney plugging it up.
They got out the blockage from the bottom somehow and lined it. No problems since.

 

[tfdchief]

Sometimes a heavy log chain down the chimney will knock loose a blockage, but as others have said here, I will bet it is more than creosote blockage.

 

[Wet1]

I agree that it sounds like something other than creosote and that you need to get a camera down there to see what's going on.

I'd also install a SS liner, regardless of what's found. I have an old house with a clay lined flue as well. I put a SS liner in for peace of mind, but later realized I had zero clearance and missing clay liner at the bottom. When I say zero clearance, I mean very old dry planking/flooring butted right up to the unlined brick... with poor joints to boot! God only knows what's going on as it goes through the house. I later poured perlite around what little space I had between the clay liner and the newer SS liner. I crunched the numbers for how much perlite would be needed, and then double checked before ordering the perlite. Despite this, I ended up needing almost twice as much perlite as I should have needed. So where did it go??? Beats me, but I not only feel better knowing it's there, but I also realize things might have been even worse than I thought!

Get a SS liner down that thing and get it insulated as well as you can.

 

[quads]

It's possible the creosote is blocking it that bad. In our old brick chimney when I was a kid, we would have to tie a heavy piece of pipe on the end of the chimney brush rope, then keep slamming it into the creosote blockage from up above until it busted through. Sometimes the brush would get stuck so tight in the chimney that we'd hook the old 1949 Willy's Jeep to it. Even broke the rope a couple times!

That sounds about like where we are - except we haven't tried the '49 Jeep yet! He did get his brush stuck, though - had to leave without it!

The chimney does have a tile liner, by the way - so it's not just brick. But the bottom section of liner (where the blockage is) is pretty old.

Ours was lined with the clay tiles too. Although, they were cracked from frequent chimney fires. If I remember right, the blockage always occurred in the same place, within a couple feet above where the pipe thimble came into it. Of course, the rest of the chimney was really full too, but not completely blocked like the one spot always was.

 

[quads]

It's possible the creosote is blocking it that bad. In our old brick chimney when I was a kid, we would have to tie a heavy piece of pipe on the end of the chimney brush rope, then keep slamming it into the creosote blockage from up above until it busted through. Sometimes the brush would get stuck so tight in the chimney that we'd hook the old 1949 Willy's Jeep to it. Even broke the rope a couple times!

And you are alive to tell this story? You are truly blessed, Quads!

Shari

Oh yes! We had many chimney fires. Never once called the fire dept. It was an external chimney, and the only thing Dad was ever concerned about was all the flaming debris coming out of it. If there was no snow-cover, he'd send one of us kids outside to watch that the roof didn't catch fire from a hot chunk of creosote. How thrilling! Like an amusement park ride. Well, maybe not exactly like that......................