Cleaning a Lopi Liberty from inside - flexible rods not flexible enough

[FireRat]

We picked up 5x 6' Imperial flexible rods to try and clean our chimney from inside, but they aren't flexible enough to go into our Lopi Liberty from below. Hoping to avoid climbing up on our tall roof but that may not be possible -- does anyone make rods that are "extra" flexible? Our flue just goes straight up about 25-30 feet so it'd be simple to clean if we could only get a rod to bend enough to fit into the stove.

Thanks!

 

[DAKSY]

What diameter rods did you get? 1/2" won't flex enough to go thru bends, but a 3/8" diameter might. I don't know that I'd go smaller than that.

 

[FireRat]

Looks like these Imperial BR0305's are about 5/16th of an inch. I did notice if I grab the very ends on both side I can bend it way further than I was before iirc, I'll have to try again this weekend - getting our first light snow tomorrow so our fireplace is a little busy right now :D

 

[ckr74]

No one has suggested it yet so I will. Go with a Sooteater and take the flexible rods back if possible. Buy two kits so you'll have enough length. It's more money but it will be flexible enough to get the job done. It should work.

 

[FireRat]

Thanks, now that definitely looks flexible enough!

 

[FireRat]

The Sooteater worked great last night, used 9 rods so 27'. We had a lot more creosote than we figured too as we just got this house in April this year though we already went through 4 feet of snow last spring (yay living on top of a mountain!) Last spring we had the stove/chimney inspected and they fixed the damper, and put a wind brace on the chimney up top.


It did start swaying back and forth when I accidentally revved the drill a little too fast, since it's so tall and not braced indoors anywhere. Now I'm wondering how to tell if its a Class A chimney and/or if we should put in a little bracing inside halfway up or so just to stabilize it during cleaning.


Also noticed a bit of creosote also came out of the chimney on top of the stove somehow, is this normal? No smoke/smell issues after we got it all cleaned up and lit a fire last night though.

 

[Highbeam]

That exterior soot came down from somewhere. Single wall pipe doesn't fit together that tightly but usually it is assembled so that any falling debris is channeled into the pipe. Is your pipe installed upside down?

 

[FireRat]

Ahhh, well then I'm sure a bit probably escaped when it was swaying back and forth a good 6+ inches - I didn't notice it at first and the drill was so loud I couldn't hear my wife trying to warn me for a minute. It doesn't look upside down to me but I'm not really sure what I'm looking at either. The sections do all have stickers at the top of each section that seemed burnt up (should have been removed probably by the previous owners when they put it in in 1999 maybe? oopsies!)

We could brace it pretty easily to that band of wood basically where the 2nd floor should be, if the brace wouldn't spread the heat over to that wood too much.

 

[begreen]

That is an excessive amount of single-wall stove pipe. There's a good chance it's cooling down the flue gases too much and contributing to the creosote accumulation.

 

[FireRat]

I wasn't sure how much of the heat is coming from the stove itself vs the chimney, would we get significantly less heating of the house with an insulated chimney inside?

Also curious if a quality Class A chimney going all the way up would need any additional bracing (inside the house), it sure seems like a long run and its going to be Sooteater'd many more times in the future.

Probably too late for this season unfortunately but we'll try to get it replaced next year, still recovering from buying the house and other odds and ends. Would have done it this year but the sweeps who did the inspection didn't mention anything. It came with 7 acres so we don't have to worry about wood at least besides hauling it down our 30-40 degree slope, better down than up though!

 

[begreen]

Significantly no, but less. A double-wall stove pipe still radiates a fair amount of heat, but is much more effective at keeping flue gas temps higher. Make sure there are 3 screws, 120º apart at each pipe joint. A wall brace mid-pipe wouldn't hurt.