First Chimney Sweep Plan- Sooteater?

[Washxc]

Hi All,

Just doing some planning while I'm waiting to turn down the air for the not.

I'm formulating a plan for my first chimney cleaning on my own. We purchased our Buck 81 stove last year and had a certified chimney sweep come out early this fall so that I could watch it done right once before attempting it myself.

Anyways, I've attached three pictures of our setup. The first picture shows our stove which has single wall coming out from the top of the stove in the back, makes a 90 and then heads through the thimble in the wall. We've got a T clean out outside under the porch before the pipe heads straight up through the roof.

The baffle boards are easy to slide out on the Buck, so my plan was to possibly purchase a sooteater and clean from the T through the wall and push everything into the stove (with the door shut), then change gears and use the sooteater and go straight up the rest of the chimney. If it works, it could be a real simple set-up. My concern is whether or not the sooteater can make the bend (slight bend to get into the thimble from the T), run the horizontal, and then make a 90 down to the stove. I'm wondering if that's asking too much.

Option two is to just run a brush up the outside portion of the chimney, remove the single wall inside the house and take it outside for a brushing and then reinstall. It'd be nice to not have to take anything apart, but perhaps that's not feasible.

What do you folks think?

 

[Nick Mystic]

I have a Sooteater, so I have some first hand experience with it. In my situation I can access the top of my chimney pretty easy from my roof and I clean from the top down. One reason being that the chimney cap is almost always going to be the dirtiest thing needing cleaning when you do a sweep. I like to remove my cap and take it down and clean it by hand with brushes and a scraper. As to your situation, I don't think I would try to use the Sooteater for the first part of the job as you described coming through your T from the outside and then making the 90 degree turn down into the top of your stove. Even just making a 90 degree turn with the rods is not recommended by the makers of the device. Making the double bend you would need to do is likely to be too much for the rods in my opinion. I have a similar set up with my lower level stove and I take my single wall inside pipe off the stove and slide it out of my thimble and just clean it outdoors. For me it's just a once a year job, so it's not a big hardship to do the disassembly and reassembly every 12 months.

In your photos it looks like you have quite a bit of stack sticking up beyond your roof. Is the chimney cap too high to reach from standing on your roof? If it is, then I'm wondering if you need some supports to stabilize the chimney? Maybe I can't see them in the photo. The reason I ask about the height of the chimney is because the rain cap is where you are likely to have the worst creosote build up and if you don't get this element cleaned well it will present problems with your draft when you burn. The Sooteater might be able to clean it okay from the bottom up, but I think it's a good idea at least once a year to get a good close up look at the cap and during a cleaning is the ideal time. Good luck with your sweep. I just did my mid-season sweep this past Tuesday when we got up in the 50s.

 

[remkel]

The soot eater will make the bend.

 

[isipwater]

I have a Sooteater, so I have some first hand experience with it. In my situation I can access the top of my chimney pretty easy from my roof and I clean from the top down. One reason being that the chimney cap is almost always going to be the dirtiest thing needing cleaning when you do a sweep. I like to remove my cap and take it down and clean it by hand with brushes and a scraper. As to your situation, I don't think I would try to use the Sooteater for the first part of the job as you described coming through your T from the outside and then making the 90 degree turn down into the top of your stove. Even just making a 90 degree turn with the rods is not recommended by the makers of the device. Making the double bend you would need to do is likely to be too much for the rods in my opinion. I have a similar set up with my lower level stove and I take my single wall inside pipe off the stove and slide it out of my thimble and just clean it outdoors. For me it's just a once a year job, so it's not a big hardship to do the disassembly and reassembly every 12 months.

In your photos it looks like you have quite a bit of stack sticking up beyond your roof. Is the chimney cap too high to reach from standing on your roof? If it is, then I'm wondering if you need some supports to stabilize the chimney? Maybe I can't see them in the photo. The reason I ask about the height of the chimney is because the rain cap is where you are likely to have the worst creosote build up and if you don't get this element cleaned well it will present problems with your draft when you burn. The Sooteater might be able to clean it okay from the bottom up, but I think it's a good idea at least once a year to get a good close up look at the cap and during a cleaning is the ideal time. Good luck with your sweep. I just did my mid-season sweep this past Tuesday when we got up in the 50s.

What tools and techniques do you use to clean the top of your chimney/chimney cap?

 

[Nick Mystic]

I use the Sooteater to clean the entire ss flex liner from the top down to the bottom of my T-connector inside my fireplace. I remove the cap on the roof and carry it down to the ground and then use wire brushes to clean the cap. One of the brushes has a metal scraper on its tip and I use that to scrape the harder deposits off. Sometimes I'll put a round wire brush in one of my drills and run that inside the wire screen to do a little more thorough cleaning if I'm really energetic.

 

[tcassavaugh]

is it easier to take out the baffles than take the single wall pipe apart? I opt for taking apart my pipe. easy for me, having a similar set up. I get up on the roof and go top down also. not hard for me to do. how does that little fan on top work? I've always wondered about them.