Cleaning Question for two 90 degree Turns

[rollandwasteland]

Sorry if this post question has been asked before. I just purchased an old farmhouse. The previous owners were che.., ah, thrifty. So I am not sure when the last time the chimney's were cleaned. All three chimney's are through the wall chimney's. Usually about a 3-4 foot run, then a 90 degree bend, then another 4 foot run through the wall, then another 90 degree bend. Outside it is about a 6-12 foot run depending on the chimney. So my question is what type of "rod" do I use that will flex 90 degrees? Or do I have to disassemble the pipes? If there is not a lot of creosote on the last section of the chimney can I assume that the entire chimney is clean? With this type of setup is it possible that the horizontal pipe has all the creosote or that is where it accumulates so there would be very little on the top? Having a chimney sweep come out is almost impossible due to the remote area.

Thanks for any comments

 

[BrotherBart]

I would take all of the connector pipe down and clean it. Single wall pipe can build up a lot of crud. And since you don't know how they maintained things you need to check the pipe for condition anyway. Single wall black pipe can be severely corroded from the inside and you would never know it looking at the outside.

 

[Adam_MA]

I disassembled mine, and I'm glad I did. I had more build-up in the connector pipe than in the rest of my chimney combined.

 

[cmonSTART]

Yup. Disassembling the connector pipe is the best thing to do, especially if you've never seen the inside of the system before.

 

[jtp10181]

If you have connector pipe inside with a 90 through the wall you pretty much have to disconnect it to clean the horizontal section. If you can spin the 90 off at least, then you could run a brush horizontal and push the crap outside to the clean-out Tee (I hope you at least have those?).

 

[summit]

and when you are done, change that awful setup!