Can I brush my chimney from the top down without disconnecting stove pipe at the stove? Or will the soot damage/clog the catalyst? If so, is there a trick to protecting it during the process? It's a Hearthstone Green Mountain 80.
Cleaning chimney top-down with Hearthstone catalytic stove...
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You can broom it down, then you can either lower the baffles and get the debris out or pull the pipe up. The pipe should never be installed in a way that makes it difficult to lift off the stove. Personally I’d pull the pipe and lower the baffle on a sweep. 100% you need to do one or the other though. These stoves have a really tough time getting through a whole season without the cats being cleaned out.
I removed the baffles but could not access the debris through the catalyst bypass gate . I went in through the catalyst access door at the rear and ended up removing the catalyst for cleaning. Glad I did it because it was quite messy, probably because last season was my and I struggled to find dry wood. Thanks for your help.
personally I would NOT brush an entire chimneys worth of soot into my Hearthstone. The stove has so many nooks an crannies in the bypass mechanism and chances are your CATS need to be cleaned anyway.
I would disconnect the connector pipe and use masking tape to seal a grocery bag up to the pipe and sweep all of that junk into a bag.
I would disconnect the connector pipe and use masking tape to seal a grocery bag up to the pipe and sweep all of that junk into a bag.
It is a little pain to raise my pipe to tape a bag to end, so I carefully remove cats from back, put back panel back on, remove the 2 porous brick ceiling panels, close door, clean pipe from top down, remove back panel again, vacuum every nook and cranny from back and from front, inspect both sides of cats, vacuum without touching honey combs, make sure stove Gasket is wrapped around each and carefully put them on the shelf again ensuring they are flush. It is a pita.
Total Pita! Reps told use to just toss the cat and bypass gaskets when it falls out, it was only there for just in case it made a diffence in epa testing. Apparently it doesn’t make a difference. If it’s tested with it, it has to be sold with it.
This is good news, these gaskets are stupid expensive to replace and often need to be ordered
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