Well, I finally got my newly lined chimney cleaned today after my first season of heating our house with wood. Its a 6" SS liner about 20' tall. We probably burned about 4 cords this year as near as I can tell. It was all in pretty good shape. It had about 1/2-3/4" of buildup at the very top of the liner but it was not the nasty stuff. All flaky that came off easily. When it was all swept into the insert there was probably 3-5 cups of flakes based upon my not so scientific estimates. 
So based upon what we found and discussions with the sweep I think we're going to probably do a mid-year cleaning next winter to prevent the buildup at the top and keep the pipe cleaner. Does that sound about right to the experts here?
We used good dry wood this year and tried our best to keep it nice and hot and burn well but we all make mistakes. It was good to hear it was doing that well. The sweeps thought it looked fine for 4 cords so that was a relief.
Eric
So based upon what we found and discussions with the sweep I think we're going to probably do a mid-year cleaning next winter to prevent the buildup at the top and keep the pipe cleaner. Does that sound about right to the experts here? We used good dry wood this year and tried our best to keep it nice and hot and burn well but we all make mistakes. It was good to hear it was doing that well. The sweeps thought it looked fine for 4 cords so that was a relief.
Eric
