Buildup Normal for Stainless Liner and Cleaning Recommendations?

[Hexa Fox]

Hey guys,

Trying to get out in front of my project this year before it starts getting cold unlike last year. So for reference I installed a stainless liner with an Englander 32-NC last year. I did not start using it until we were halfway through the burning season or so. This picture is the horizontal run between my wall that connects my wood stove and chimney. I don't know how but this buildup looks worse than it does on camera. Does this look like normal buildup for something that I did not even use for half of the season?

Also we thought that my woodstove may have been getting hotter than normal. I do think some of my wood had too much moisture in it but I know a lot of it was dry. The dry pieces obviously burned a lot better but it did seem like the fire 'got away' from me much faster. As in even with the stove locked down it could burn pretty hot. Not sure if this could have contributed to the buildup or not but thought I would mention it. I am considering adding a damper somewhere to get more control. I may leave it out for now though because I realize I am still learning this stove. I moved from an old Huntsman I believe was made by Fisher and this has been quite the adjustment. I went into it prepared because of this community.

Finally if you guys also have cleaning recommendations I would like to hear those as well. We have always cleaned ours from the top down. Now that I have the stainless liner I may like to go from the bottom up. The only thing is, my horizontal run is about two and a half feet long before it meets the vertical tee. I think the Soot Eater things that look like string trimmer line get good feedback here. I'm not sure it is going to work well for me if it has to go that far before it bends?

 

[blades]

pic can be deceiving. but looks to be a bit much . horz. runs are always frowned on can you possible run 2 45s? Soot eater I don't think it will work with 2 -90 deg bends. I clean bottom up with soot eater passing through a set of 45's connected to each other for an offset with no problems. That 2ft might be a deal breaker as the rods are about 3 ft long . That puts a bend at each end of the rod.

 

[Hexa Fox]

pic can be deceiving. but looks to be a bit much . horz. runs are always frowned on can you possible run 2 45s? Soot eater I don't think it will work with 2 -90 deg bends. I clean bottom up with soot eater passing through a set of 45's connected to each other for an offset with no problems. That 2ft might be a deal breaker as the rods are about 3 ft long . That puts a bend at each end of the rod.

Yes, so my wood stove setup has two 45 elbows already. The pics can definitely be deceiving. I'm not sure if it has to do with the flash or what but they look worse in person.

Also so we are understanding each other, the wood stove pipe is removed from the horizontal run right now. So it would go in the 2-3' and then 90° the rest of the way up the chimney, which is just under 20'. You probably understand once looking at the picture, but that first picture is looking directly into that flange where the brick is.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

So, I’ve seen much worse, but that’s more than I’d like to see. Is your wood better this year? What does the top of the flue look like?

I think you can expect more buildup when you’re learning a stove and new to burning.

You might want to pull everything apart mid year and check that you’re getting better results.

 

[stoveliker]

If the 45s are off now,.a soot eater will work. I do the same.

Do have a bag on the end of the pipe (with a hole thru which to feed the rods) to avoid a mess in the home.

Build up is a bit much.
Black from wet wood,.grey from too much draft on dry wood?

 

[Hexa Fox]

If the 45s are off now,.a soot eater will work. I do the same.

Do have a bag on the end of the pipe (with a hole thru which to feed the rods) to avoid a mess in the home.

Build up is a bit much.
Black from wet wood,.grey from too much draft on dry wood?

Yeah I thought of this right away. Regardless we always cover the inlet when cleaning. I have never done it from bottom to top though.

 

[Hexa Fox]

So, I’ve seen much worse, but that’s more than I’d like to see. Is your wood better this year? What does the top of the flue look like?

I think you can expect more buildup when you’re learning a stove and new to burning.

You might want to pull everything apart mid year and check that you’re getting better results.

To be honest, I am not really sure. I was burning a lot of large chunks of ash that I probably should have made a little smaller. They were split and stacked for roughly a year before burning. I was told the advantage to ash is that it has a pretty low moisture content right away. I have a moisture meter but did not really go out of my way to split and read the wood.

I still think my stove is getting too much air, I know that our basement is in fact pretty 'drafty' so it is no surprise. As soon as I see there is any kind of fire in the firebox I immediately close the air all the way off. For some of the stuff that I believed was more moist I just did not turn it back all the way. I know this was bad because even with the air fully or partially open you can see it was struggling to have any kind of visible flame. When I go outside to look you can see a great deal of visible smoke.

I'm not going to worry about it too much. If I keep having trouble maybe I will install a damper mid season when I pull apart to check or just wait until next season. I have burned wood my entire life. Just this is my first secondary air stove and liner setup.

 

[Hexa Fox]

Also I knew this stove was going to be picky, I did the research before purchasing but it is much more picky than the old Fisher that got replaced. Because a lot of the stuff I was putting in the Englander this Winter was the same stuff I was putting in the Fisher the previous year and it was burning just fine.

I'm no wood expert but I am a little concerned because a lot of the stuff that I was putting into the Englander has been split and stacked for several years. A good deal of it would have been from approximately two years prior to going into the Englander.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

To me it seams a little on the higher side. How many cords is this. Can you clean and take a pic of what comes out.. Some areas look black and chunky.. .. Mone is graphite in color.. not black and fine in color.. up INSIDE the cap it gets a little flaky. but that should be expected.. on the cap

 

[Hexa Fox]

To me it seams a little on the higher side. How many cords is this. Can you clean and take a pic of what comes out.. Some areas look black and chunky.. .. Mone is graphite in color.. not black and fine in color.. up INSIDE the cap it gets a little flaky. but that should be expected.. on the cap

I took from several different stacks so there is no way to know for sure. I would approximate it to be right around a cord since I started burning late. I believe it was probably less than a cord though.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

For around a cord of wood, you were either burning choked down or it was wet.

What did your glass look like?

 

[Hexa Fox]

For around a cord of wood, you were either burning choked down or it was wet.

What did your glass look like?

Yeah I know it was probably wet. I could tell because the door did get frequently cloudy and have a nice layer of black buildup on it. However, it does seem like it was to one extreme or the other. As in I was either running with the air all the way open and with dry wood it was pretty much closed all the time.

I remember reading here that you sometimes need to check your ash cleanout drawer. I mentioned this in another forum post I made but my ash cleanout drawer is ridiculously loose and has a very large gap in it. There is a plug in the firebox for it but still.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

If the spaces around the plug are dense packed with ash, and the spaces between all the other bricks are similarly packed in, air can’t get in that way.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

So what course(s) of action are you going to do in order to burn cleaner next year?

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Yeah I know it was probably wet. I could tell because the door did get frequently cloudy and have a nice layer of black buildup on it. However, it does seem like it was to one extreme or the other. As in I was either running with the air all the way open and with dry wood it was pretty much closed all the time.

I remember reading here that you sometimes need to check your ash cleanout drawer. I mentioned this in another forum post I made but my ash cleanout drawer is ridiculously loose and has a very large gap in it. There is a plug in the firebox for it but still.

You should keep track of how much your burning. You also should do a mid season sweep.. I normally sweep mid season. I don't need to bur better saft then sorry. I burn 3 to 4 cords per year and mine never looked that. You need a moisture meter.. if you wood is still wet I suggest kiln drying whil you still have time..

 

[Hexa Fox]

So what course(s) of action are you going to do in order to burn cleaner next year?

Hope for the best I guess. A lot of the stuff I have right now I cut, split and stacked from around late 2022 and I started burning it early 2023. Some of the stuff was under a year and other stuff was over a year. There were several trees, one was mine, which was a wild cherry tree. One of the neighbors cut down two ash trees and the other had something else removed. I know it is bad to not know. Anyway I have other stuff here (that I purchased) that is two and three years old. I am hoping the ash and other stuff will be dry and ready to go this year.

I bought a log splitter in late 2022 because I looked at all of the wood as an opportunity to get some free wood. I am still splitting the wild cherry tree on my own property that is mostly just because of procrastination though. So to answer, I am hoping I will be more familiar with the stove this year and my wood will be a little dryer. Worst case scenario if I am still having problems I will consider adding a damper and cleaning midway through the burning season.

If the 45s are off now,.a soot eater will work. I do the same.

Do have a bag on the end of the pipe (with a hole thru which to feed the rods) to avoid a mess in the home.

Build up is a bit much.
Black from wet wood,.grey from too much draft on dry wood?

Anymore advice on cleaning? This is what I would like to concentrate on now. Anyone can chime in of course. My chimney height from the tee is about 17'. The stainless liner sticks up almost 1' more and the horizontal run is almost 2'. That is exactly 20' which I thought I would be good with but now I am thinking I may need to go longer to make certain I can get all the way to the top.

I may true to clean out the horizontal part separately and then run it up the vertical side. Because I am hoping that the buildup is not like this all the way up the entire liner. Anyone have a specific brand they like? I see there are a lot on Amazon alone?

Are these things pretty harmless to the actual liner? Like should I run the drill on a lower setting to decrease the amount of wear on the liner?

 

[stoveliker]

I have the soot eater, white rods ore bendable, they say).

Stick the first rod thru the bag, tape the bag to the pipe coming out of the thimble, run the drill. Okay to run not slow; it's plastic, not going to damage the liner (at least my rigid steel wall liner).

Your flue may be on the short side which also can lead to smoldering and thus build up, if it's 17' high but with 2 ft horizontal run.

Get a moisture meter.
Look up woodsplitter s kiln thread (see his signature).
Wood only starts to dry after it's split and stacked off the ground. Having rounds of a year old doesn't help much.

 

[Hexa Fox]

I have the soot eater, white rods ore bendable, they say).

Stick the first rod thru the bag, tape the bag to the pipe coming out of the thimble, run the drill. Okay to run not slow; it's plastic, not going to damage the liner (at least my rigid steel wall liner).

Your flue may be on the short side which also can lead to smoldering and thus build up, if it's 17' high but with 2 ft horizontal run.

Get a moisture meter.
Look up woodsplitter s kiln thread (see his signature).
Wood only starts to dry after it's split and stacked off the ground. Having rounds of a year old doesn't help much.

Thank you, I already have a moisture meter. I just need to force myself to split a couple different pieces from piles that I plan on burning and read them. I will report back to you guys afterwards.

 

[Hexa Fox]

I am looking at the Soot Eater and other similar products with white rods but they all say they are not recommended for any 90 degree bend. There are a lot of reviews that say they are very prone to breaking if you try. I am not opposed to just getting on my roof and going top down. The only problem is going to be the cap. The screws were an absolute pain in the @$$ to get into the last section of pipe to secure the cap to it. Some of them got pretty tight while others did not. I really do not want to give this thing a chance to get stuck in my liner.

Does anyone know of anything else I could use to hold the cap on? Obviously any kind of nuts and bolts are out the question because you cannot access the inside with the cap installed. If I clean from top down for now it would be nice to have a better way to deal with the cap.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I have the old black rods. They could 90 from 6” pipe to 5.5” liner. The only shaft that ever broke was when the drill was dropped and the crazy bending while twisting that caused.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I disassemble a section of chimney. It’s easier than screwing with the cap.

 

[Hexa Fox]

I disassemble a section of chimney. It’s easier than screwing with the cap.

Long story short, I bought the white rods which I thought were going to be more flexible and I cannot get them to go up the 90°. I even tried tying a piece of yarn to the head so I could help guide it up and no luck at all. I have not secured the outer faceplate to my mason hearth yet either so I decided to stop before I did more harm than good.

Anyway, like you said I removed the cap today and it was a pain to say the least. I sort of knew it was going to be as well. I am thinking about using some larger screws and making sure they thread in better this time around.

This is the cap and the very top of the liner of my stainless liner chimney. This is before cleaning but there is some definite buildup there too. Does this wear look normal for a stainless liner that has only been used a single season? I think it is agreed upon that I have some issues but how bad is it?

I think that the draft in my basement is just too strong. I see they make a 6" section of double wall stove pipe with a damper already installed. I am uncertain of how I will incorporate it into what I have now but I will figure it out. I think it will really help with my burn times and the stove getting out of control when I fill it up. Also might invest in one of the better thermometers for the stove as well.