How long do you guys scrape your chimney for? I'm pretty determined to get mine very clean but I wondering how overboard I'm going. Does running the brush for 20 minutes on a 17ft run sound about right?
Chimney Clean
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The loose sooty stuff should just fall right off. If there is something nasty enough to warrant scraping, a brush probably isn't going to easily cut it. Are you just doing routing cleaning or are you trying to get something abnormally sticky or gooey?
I just go straight up with the SootEater and run it back down with rotation in the opposite direction. If I used a brush it would I would just go up, then down....then done. Maybe some slight back and forth motions as I'm going up or down....but nothing fancy.
I just go straight up with the SootEater and run it back down with rotation in the opposite direction. If I used a brush it would I would just go up, then down....then done. Maybe some slight back and forth motions as I'm going up or down....but nothing fancy.
We have a a straight run of about 20 ft. I run the brush down it just once and pack it up, takes just a couple minutes and I don't think it'd get any cleaner if I ran it through another time or two. I guess it depends on people's setup and wood. I don't get much creosote at all so I just clean it once a year in the Fall.
A good brush should be tight enough that it only goes one direction and has no wiggle room for back and forth motions. Any play in the brush and you are doing all the work yourself and not letting the brush do its job.
i was just wondering about that,,,, I cannot reverse direction on my brush until it goes all the way thru.
It's just a black powder substance with a few small crystal like flakes. My brush seems to go up and down with very little resistance. I did buy the whole kit from Chimney Liner Depot so I think the liner and brush are supposed to be together.
Last time I had about half a gallon sized freezer bag full. That was for about 7 weeks of burning 24/7. My wood is cut split stacked for 2 years but it's less than ideal. The glass blacks up once I engage the cat and cut the air off. As the fire burns down the black line goes down with it until it's all gone. Not perfect but next year will be better.
We usually have a cup or two of black, ashy creosote at the end of winter, give or take a little. The better your wood is and the hotter you burn, the less creosote you should have. I try to get my first load of the day up to 600-650
stovetop and found that doing so helps keep the stack nice and clean.Wow - 20 minutes! Sounds like overkill to me. I have about a 20 foot straight run. I just run the brush up and down once or twice a few feet while rotating it each time I add a 3' section of rod until I get all the way to the bottom, then pull it up as I disassemble the rod. Probably takes all of 5 minutes not including cleaning the chimney cap, which takes a few more minutes, or getting up on the roof and back down.
I don't try to scrub the flue so it is shiny clean; I don't think that would even be possible, at least not without damaging the flue. It has a tight brown coating remaining after cleaning that I don't think is at all a problem. I just make sure to get all the loose stuff off.
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