Creosote-too much?

[alber197]

Hello everyone, how concerned should I be with this amount of creosote? It is not sticky and comes up fairly easy but it is pretty shiny. Do I need to do a cleaning as soon as possible? This is after about 1.5- 2 months burning with our new pacific energy. This is at the top of the flue looking down with the cap off. There is about 6 ft of pipe outside so the top section does get colder. Below that the chimney looks much cleaner.

We burn at our weekend place so 1-2 cold starts each week. We plugged the boost hole a couple weeks ago and it was a little learning curve again and we may have been turning down too quick and creating more smoke than normal.

Wood is dry and under 20% when split.

Thank you for your help.

 

[bholler]

Hello everyone, how concerned should I be with this amount of creosote? It is not sticky and comes up fairly easy but it is pretty shiny. Do I need to do a cleaning as soon as possible? This is after about 1.5- 2 months burning with our new pacific energy. This is at the top of the flue looking down with the cap off. There is about 6 ft of pipe outside so the top section does get colder. Below that the chimney looks much cleaner.

We burn at our weekend place so 1-2 cold starts each week. We plugged the boost hole a couple weeks ago and it was a little learning curve again and we may have been turning down too quick and creating more smoke than normal.

Wood is dry and under 20% when split.

Thank you for your help.
View attachment 305321

It's definitely a little concerning I would clean it

 

[EatenByLimestone]

For so early in the season, and for so few burns, I don’t like that.

I’d clean it out too.

 

[alber197]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm going to have to figure out what's going on because I don't want to have to clean it so often. I have a sooteater coming next week and will clean it.

I just went out and split a few pieces of wood and checked moisture again.
Biggest piece of hard maple was 17-18% in the middle
White ash-13%

Could it just be that a large percentage of my chimney is outside or in the attic? About 50% is outside or in the attic and it's only about 14ft tall?

 

[bholler]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm going to have to figure out what's going on because I don't want to have to clean it so often. I have a sooteater coming next week and will clean it.

I just went out and split a few pieces of wood and checked moisture again.
Biggest piece of hard maple was 17-18% in the middle
White ash-13%

Could it just be that a large percentage of my chimney is outside or in the attic? About 50% is outside or in the attic and it's only about 14ft tall?

What pipe temps are you running at? Dry wood run to cool will still make a big mess out of the chimney

 

[alber197]

What pipe temps are you running at? Dry wood run to cool will still make a big mess out of the chimney

We just installed a condar probe last weekend. We are trying to keep it 400-800 flue Temps.

We were just using a stove top thermometer before that.

We were running super hot at first and we covered the boost hole with a magnet. After we did that, we were turning down to quick and snuffed the fire out a handful of times so maybe that was what caused it.

When we leave for the weekend, we just leave it turned down and let the coals go out. Can that cause too much creosote?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Coals will not form creosote. I think you’re turning down too far./fast.

Clean it and check in a month to see how you’re doing. Since you’re cold starting so often, you’ll always get more buildup than some of the guys here that have a warm glue all year long, but you shouldn’t be getting the glaze.

 

[moresnow]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm going to have to figure out what's going on because I don't want to have to clean it so often. I have a sooteater coming next week and will clean it.

I just went out and split a few pieces of wood and checked moisture again.
Biggest piece of hard maple was 17-18% in the middle
White ash-13%

Could it just be that a large percentage of my chimney is outside or in the attic? About 50% is outside or in the attic and it's only about 14ft tall?

Sounds like you are testing cold splits ? If so, try bringing a selection of splits indoors overnight to get them to room temp (roughly 70F is recognized as correct calibration temp for many testers). Then re-split and check the freshly exposed inner surface. The cold splits can give you a false low M/C reading.
I'd clean that pipe as mentioned as well.

 

[alber197]

Thanks for the help everyone..

Splits are warming. 60 degree or so. We keep some wood inside and that's what I split..

I'll clean the pipe and check again in a month.. not super fun getting on the roof in the winter tho.