First time chimney cleaning

[timfromohio]

Ok guys, I bought a heavy-duty 6" nylon brush and rods from Northline Express and cleaned the chimneys yesterday for the first time (first time myself, they have been cleaned before!). One chimney is a 6" liner for a PE insert. The other is 6" class A double wall pipe for a Napolean 1150p. I cleaned both from the top and was quite surprised at how little ash/dust/buildup I had. In each chimney I had only about a quart of very black looking building. I visually inspected with flashlight and mirror as best I could and did not see any additional material on the sides. Is this pretty typical?

Last year I had substantially more buildup with the insert and it was more brown in color. I believe this was b/c I was turning down the stove too low before going to bed. I stopped this practice last year and didn't turn it down as low - seemed to have worked.

How about color - brown vs. black - is brown more indicative of creosote buildup?

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[Pagey]

Everything I swept last year was the color of coffee grounds. I usually associate the black, crusty stuff with creosote.

 

[firefighterjake]

Sounds like you're burning better . . . congrats.

Brown/black . . . I'm not really sure . . . I would guess that brown is better than black . . . but I wouldn't sweat the black stuff even as long as it is dry, dust-like, corn-flake or pop-corn like vs. shiny and hard.

 

[Pagey]

Let me qualify that by saying that I associate black with creosote because when my grandmother burned her Fisher (and smoldered fires all day) dad would get a coal hod full of black, crispy chunks out of SS flu every 2 or 3 weeks. Literally, a heaping coal hod full every 2 or 3 weeks. And this was just using the fiberglass rods to knock it loose! He didn't have a poly brush at the time, so there's no telling what it would have looked like using a brush. Now she burns a Lopi Liberty, and we only get the brown, coffee ground looking stuff.

But, like stated above, if you're just getting powdery stuff in the small amounts you describe, I'd say you're doing great.

 

[Fsappo]

Sounds like you're burning better . . . congrats.

Brown/black . . . I'm not really sure . . . I would guess that brown is better than black . . . but I wouldn't sweat the black stuff even as long as it is dry, dust-like, corn-flake or pop-corn like vs. shiny and hard.

X2

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Black; creosote. Brown; no worries.

 

[bren582]

Just cleaned my 6" SS liner after one season burning well seasoned wood which I think is a key factor here.. and got about a coffee cup full of black and brown powder. before cleaning I noticed the brown powder was at the bottom of the liner closer to the stove, maybe because of the higher heat there? The black powder was towards the top of the liner. I'm thinking the brown is burnt down completely while the black less so and more prone to stick to the liner further up the flue as the gas cools off.. The inside of my chimney cap was also coated with black soot but is washed right off with a shot from my garden hose. My liner is well insulated but in an outside masonry chimney,,

Bottom line is no hard glassy looking stuff found..

 

[timfromohio]

It seems that most of the residue I had was from the top portion of both chimneys. I saw almost nothing in either before cleaning when I looked with a mirror and flashlight. Most of the stuff that came down was the consistency of the black, soot-like material that I also knocked off the chimney caps. I'll take a closer look at what is in the stoves this evening - I haven't cleaned them out yet as I wanted to spend more time cleaning the interiors of the stoves.

 

[Pagey]

Here's what mine looked like the first time I cleaned it. This was using less than ideal red oak, mostly.

 

[timfromohio]

PS - Man, I'm so happy I did this - prices just keep going up and I never felt like any of the sweeps that came out did much in the way of an inspection.

 

[CK-1]

Whats the newspaper for?... Will you be using the chimney crumbs as kindling for your next burn?..

 

[Pagey]

Whats the newspaper for?... Will you be using the chimney crumbs as kindling for your next burn?..

I put them down so that I would have some separation between the ash the stuff from the flue. Since it was the first cleaning ever, I wanted to have a good visual aid that helped the stuff really stand out so I could post a pic and get an idea of what was normal. ;-P