Cleaning Jotul Oslo flue

[MountainDream]

I have an Oslo in my new house. This is our first full winter burning it. Last year we ran it for about 2 months on and off while I finished building the house.

I bought one of the Gardus Sooteater systems to clean the flue. I have a standing seam metal roof on a 12/12 pitch, and a pretty tall chase on the roof, so top down cleaning is not an option for me.

I need to clean from the bottom up. Do I take the baffle off the top of the stove interior to do this? I don't really want to take apart my double wall pipe that is exposed, because I'm sure it would get scratched up and need a repaint.

How do I take the baffle off the roof of the stove, and is this even the right way to do it?


She's burning at full tilt, so I can't explore inside right now. Any other tips on cleaning from the bottom up? I was planning to put my wife up on the hill with some binoculars to let me know when the brush pokes out the top. (There is a large square decorative cover on top of the chase, and no actual cap on the stove pipe itself.).

I have tons of White pine scraps that I burn for kindling, and the firewood wasn't the driest last year, so I'd like to do a pre emptive strike before we start burning full time for the winter

Thanks.

Brian B

 

[MountainDream]

Bump for a suggestion from the night crew. Thanks!

 

[semipro]

I suspect you'll need to disconnect your flue at the stove to get the clearance needed for the brush.
I clean my Oslo from the top but remove the stove's top cooking plate to access the fallen creosote. The top plate is held on with 2 fasteners that (IIRC) can be accessed through the front of the stove without removing the baffle. I believe the wrench size is 10mm. This probably won't help you though as I can't see how you'd get a brush up the flue past the 90 degree curve.

 

[Simonkenton]

Disconnect the interior pipe. Take it outside and clean it.
Get your five foot fiberglass cleaning rod with the brush on it. Stick it inside a 55 gallon trash bag with the brush at the top. Poke the rod through the bag at the bottom.

Get on a ladder and tape the bag opening to the ceiling pass through kit. So the bag opening is taped to the pass through, and the rod is poking out of the bottom of the bag. Start running the brush up and down.
Screw the next section of rod on, and run it up into the pipe. Keep adding rod on until you get to the top of the pipe.
All the ashes and creosote will land inside the bag and won't make much of a mess in your living room.

 

[MountainDream]

So is there a way to clean from the bottom up, while leaving the stove pipe intact? By removing the top plate inside the stove?

 

[CincyBurner]

So is there a way to clean from the bottom up, while leaving the stove pipe intact?

It'll probably depend how you have your stove's flue connected to the chimney. For me instead of a 90* elbow flue connecting to the chimney, I installed a clean-out Tee. This makes chimney access, inspection, and clean-out easy. I use trash bag technique as mentioned by Simonkenton (but top-down since my chimney exits in middle of gentle sloped roof of a ranch house, making clean-out from top easy).

But I still lift off the entire top of my Oslo to inspect and clean from the stove side (leave it unscrewed afterward as mentioned in past threads).