Chimney sweeping frequency for pellet boiler?

[whit]

With a new pellet boiler into a newly lined chimney, what's the best rule of thumb for chimney sweeping? Presumably this should be far less prone to creosote buildup than a wood stove. I asked the maintenance tech with the firm that installed the boiler, and he had no real answer. On the other hand the manual for the boiler suggests checking the chimney "regularly" -- no doubt to spare them any liability. What do folks find running pellet boilers over the years?

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

You should get only dry fly ash if the boiler is burning correctly. I run a brush through about twice a season, but I burn a lot of the cheapest pellets I can find. Others may not need to do it that often.

There's also the "leaf blower trick," using a leaf blower to power-blast the chimney. It works pretty well.

 

[whit]

Will a leaf blower accomplish much going up the chimney from the basement of a 2-storey house? I've used one with the pellet stove to pull from the stove pipe, but that's far less pipe. And I'm not the sort to climb up on my slate roof. Never had anything more than ash in years of running the pellet stove though, so suspect you're right about the pellet boiler not putting out more than that either.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

It depends on the size of the leaf blower!

 

[whit]

It depends on the size of the leaf blower!

Are you joking, or would something like this likely really do the job?

Amazon product ASIN B09SBX7BTK

 

[EatenByLimestone]

This is what I envision with the leaf blower trick.



I’ve never done it. Hooking up a soot eater to a drill is too easy and I know my result will be excellent. Of course, that doesn’t look overly hard either. You mentioned 2 stories. It seems to me that’d need a bigger leaf blower than a single story to blow out all the ash. I honestly don’t know what size you’d need to do it. 650 CFM that you linked to is a pretty powerful unit.