Chinook creosote buildup

[QuarryHouse]

I've owned my Chinook for 2 years now. The burning season seems to be coming to an end here with temps of 64 and 65 today and tomorrow, so I cleaned out all the ask in my stove today. I noticed a fair amount of creosote on the walls of the stove. As I have a small house (1,000 sq feet) and it's been very warm this winter, I ran the stove almost always on low, but I did run it for the 20 minutes on high on every reload. I am guessing the extended low burn temps lead to the build up. How do I clean it? I know creosote can eat into the stove walls. The side panels seem to have a gap between them and the real stove walls and not sure how best to get in there. I don't see a cleaning procedure in the manual. Can I remove the internal side panels to clean or do I have to kind of get in there with something bent?

 

[ctreitzell]

burn a hot fire or two with dry wood?

 

[kborndale]

burn a hot fire or two with dry wood?

Agreed, a nice hot fire should take care of it, may have to open the windows this time of year.

 

[stoveliker]

I do a full load wide open. Then I have a 1.5" circular metal brush that I run behind the side panels. And I scrape the surfaces in can reach.

The panels don't come off.

 

[ctreitzell]

hot fire with dry wood is how I do it
but I don't have a cat stove

it usually takes me a couple days hot fire to get fully cleaned...but, again, my Panadero is tiny compared to these big fireboxes

there is a YT vid of a guy burning cardboard to clean the creo out of his outside container furnace

 

[Tron]

I do the same, burning rather low and getting creosote deposits. A bottle brush is pretty handy to get behind the panels, but you can't reach everywhere.

 

[QuarryHouse]

OK. Next week we have a forecast for another day with a high around freezing so I'll try cranking it up.

 

[Highbeam]

A hot fire yes but I’ve found some other tricks. Stack smaller wrist sized splits in a Lincoln log type loose stack but not past the bricks. Seems the fuel load above the bricks shields the tar from the heat. Then run it as hot as possible without overtemping the flue at the earlier stages. After that initial bloom I can usually open the stat to max without exceeding limits.

You’ll see the wet tar looking stuff pucker up and bubble. Once cool, this stuff comes off really easy with scraping. It won’t burn clean.