Checklist for wood stove off season cleaning and prep?

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WoodBurner12

New Member
May 23, 2018
1
MD
Hey everyone - new member here. I was curious to hear what everyone does at the end of the heating season to clean and prepare their wood stoves. Mine has a catalytic combustor as well.

I searched for other threads on here and didn't find anything too exhaustive or recent on this topic. What do you guys do for cleaning, inspecting, and preparing the stove for the spring and summer? Thanks for the help.
 
Sweep the flue, inspect the flue. Inspect the stove for cracks, gasket issues, lubrication needed, etc. Maybe put some mesh on your cap to keep critters out. If your cat is old enough to benefit from a bath, summer's the time.
 
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I dont do a thing till fall. In my last house i could easily go 2 years without anything but our new house has a shorter chimney so allot less draft which means slower to get up to temp. So it may need every year i will find out when i get around to cleaning it.
 
Hey everyone - new member here. I was curious to hear what everyone does at the end of the heating season to clean and prepare their wood stoves. Mine has a catalytic combustor as well.

I searched for other threads on here and didn't find anything too exhaustive or recent on this topic. What do you guys do for cleaning, inspecting, and preparing the stove for the spring and summer? Thanks for the help.
What stove make & model?
 
I run the soot eater through it, wipe down baffle/chimney cap/internal metal parts lightly with wire brush to get most of the soot off, shop vac the inside of the stove, and probably replace the baffle gasket. This is on a Pacific Energy T5.
 
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Clean my liner with a sooteater and put a mesh screen on my cap to keep birds/bats out.
 
Just dealt with the bird down the chimney situation this past weekend, I'll 3rd the motion to block off the chimney. I even had "wired off" the underside of the chimney cap thinking this would prevent the issue.
 
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Same thing would happen to me every year also. Made this out of plastic chicken wire.
 
Also zip tied the bottom shut...
 
Every year I plan on doing the cleaning. But before you know it, the roofs to hot / soft to walk on. So it gets done in the fall.