Chimney cleaning and access thru stove

[CordWrangler]

Our stove is a Vermont Castings Madison Model #1655 Non-catalytic

We have a porcelain sand stove and matching sand colored pipe to the ceiling. We have always cleaned the chimney from top down and removing a section of pipe right above the stove. The chimney is straight up from stove to top. However, removing the pipe always was difficult to reassemble and would always scratch the pipe because of the turning of the slip pipe to get off and on.

So this year we are considering cleaning from the top as usual but removing the dust and soot from the sweeping from inside the stove.

Is this possible with this stove? Is it a matter of removing the air tubes and firebrick or is it more involved?

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
CW

 

[xman23]

Not that I have your stove. But I do a top down brush cleaning with the ash dropping into the stove. Most ash drops onto a shelf at the back of the stove. To get to the pile of ash, I remove the burn plates and insulation blanket at the top of the stove. I have 3 burn tubes that can't easily be removed. I use a paint brush to clean it out.

 

[CordWrangler]

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty sure the tubes will come out pretty easily but the firebricks at the top I'm really concerned about. I've never had them out. I can't tell from the diagram in the manual what is holding them in. Is this a bolt and bracket system or something else? I think this stove is from about 2002. Did Vermont Castings use a standard system for their firebricks in their stoves at that time?

I tried to attach a picture of the inside of the stove but I keep getting an error which states "There was a problem uploading your file." The file is 520Kb in size and in jpg format.

Thanks,
CW

 

[stovelark]

HI CW- the Madison baffle bricks just sit on top of the tubes in the top of your stove, they can be removed easily and let you sweep down from the top and then clean the interior of your stove. The Madison was a nice heater, never understood why it wasn't more popular, but VC people like top loading stoves, not the burn tube style like yours has. It was a nice competitor to Jotul's Oslo, was a big heater, side loading and sec burntube technology. I still think VC would have been better off with all their stoves during that time period going to sec tube technology, it would have spared us all from the "Neverburn" (everburn) system they went with instead, to keep their stoves all top loading.....

 

[CordWrangler]

Here is a pic of the inside of the stove. I've had the tubes out but the bricks don't seem to be sitting on top of the tubes. It seemed like there are some type of bracket holding the bricks. How are brackets held in place? I don't see any bolts. What is the trick that I'm missing?
Thanks,
CW

 

[stovelark]

Don't think there's any trick involved. Remove the bricks and sweep down and clean out. Sorry dont remember a bracket in place, but thats better. You can use a paint brush, whatever you want to sweep out dust and ash inside the stove while you vacuum it out..

 

[CordWrangler]

Thanks Stovelark, I will give this a try and see how it goes. I may replace some firebricks while I'm in there. This VC Madison has been a really good stove, we really like it. Thanks for the assistance. CW

 

[stovelark]

You're welcome. I had one customer, he had the porcelain blue, wow it was blue.... still a pretty stove. The Madison was indeed one fine stove, just came out when VC was still heavy hitting top loaders, then stayed away from air tube technology. Of course, its now on their Montpelier and Merrimack inserts...

 

[zig]

My stove has a damper built in that's operated by opening/closing the door so everything gets stuck in that area when cleaning. I just take the end off the shop vac and squeeze the hose up there. Works like a charm.