FIXED IT__Swept from the bottom.....still won't burn. pics included

[DavidV]

I posted a week or two back when my smoke detectors went off because the smoke won't go up the chimney. Some kind of blockage. I have 2 story house with walk up attic. I havea 24 foot ladder. I was looking around for a good deal on a 40 footer but havn't found one. I thought I would try to clean it from the bottom tonight. I pulled the stove out. took a poly brush and my cleaning rods and started working. it was a bear because I had to cut the brush down quite a bit to get it to fit in there. I got 6 full rods up the chimney and thought I was hitting the cap. got a lot of creasote out from the upper 1/3 of the chimney. I was running the shop vac the whole time and it did a great job of keeping the debris from saturating my living room.
Put it all together and the damned thing still doesn't burn. There is some kind of blockage. Nothing else can account for this. Tomorrow morning I will try to get a better look at the cap. perhaps those slit openings at the top of it are blocked with creasote. I was never too fond of the design of that cap in the first place. It seemed like a constriction point. you have an 8 inch pipe and then it's supposed to vent out the sides of the pipe thru 4 slits 3/4" wide each that line up end to end circling the pipe. I'm a bit beaten by this since I thought I was going to get the stove back in operation and it took me several hours screwing with the damned thing. Perhaps I had a learning opportunity. I wonder what I learned.

Wednesday morning edit---I found somebody stupid enough to go up on the roof. ME!. I put my 24 footer up to the lower part of the roof, then spider monkey'd myself up to the top with a brush and 8 fee of rod. Took some pics. it was all gummed up. I was wrong by the way, there were 3 rows of rectangular cutouts about 3/4 x 1 inch long that went all the way around the cap. it was still nasty and blocked solid.

Banged it on the side of the chimney then used my pocket knife to scrape it as clean as I could. ran the brush down but really didn't need to. There was some creasote but not much. Vacuumed out from below so there wouldn't be a nice creasote fire on top of the stove or in it.
burning at 500 degrees now.

since my attatchments are coming up small I will includ the links.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g276/Huntindad/Projects/crapcap.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g276/Huntindad/Projects/crapcap2.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g276/Huntindad/Projects/crapcap3.jpg

 

[MountainStoveGuy]

yea you cant get the cap from the bottem, and the cap is the likely culprit.

 

[Gooserider]

When our sweep cleans our chimney (from the bottom) and thinks he's all the way up, he checks outside to make sure he can see the brush wiggling around in the cap... If you can't see the brush, how do you know you reached the top? (I agree it's likely the cap as the problem however.)

Gooserider

 

[Sandor]

David,

There was a thread months ago about caps that use screen spark arrestors.(Or small slit opening like yours)

While some said they would never operate their stove without one, Eric Johnson and I both said that we would never use one.

At my WV home, I had one and had the same problem as yours. The cold wind, rain and snow would keep the cap cool enough to cause problems. It would glue itself shut. Switched to a more "open" cap, and no problem. Looking down the pipe from the roof showed virtual no creosote past the first 8 inches or so.

The only downside was an occasional bird in the stove. You'll hear 'em, maybe one every-other year.

 

[DavidV]

yeah I went outside with a pair of byno's this morning and I can see some build up. Glued shut is probably the best discription. I was hoping to find a decent 36 or 40 foot ladder used (I'm cheap) but I may have to bite the bullet and just buy a new one.

 

[BrotherBart]

yeah I went outside with a pair of byno's this morning and I can see some build up. Glued shut is probably the best discription. I was hoping to find a decent 36 or 40 foot ladder used (I'm cheap) but I may have to bite the bullet and just buy a new one.

Might try running the rods up to the cap without the brush. Bang around in the cap a little and a lot of the stuff should flake off. I know that when I take my caps off and tap tap them on the roof most of the stuff falls off.

 

[carpniels]

I agree with BB. I had a cap with small slits and it also plugged. Took the stainless screw out, removed the cap and banged it on the roof. quart of creosote fell out.

Banging it might do the trick. Saved you on the 40 footer.

Carpniels.

PS. Otherwise rent one. It shouldn't cost a lot for a day and you will only need to rent it once a year (april/may).

 

[FuzzyOne]

I'd second the idea of renting the ladder. I would also look for a different cap design. I'm on the side that believes the least restriction up top there is the better. You could kill two birds with one rental; clean from the top and replace the cap.

 

[Highbeam]

Oh my gosh, that is amazing. How long had it been since your last cleaning of that cap? As far as I know the only good reason for a cap is to keep water out of the flue. Birds, leaves, and other junk will er... burn up. There are several styles of cap available at my local hardware store and I wonder if even one of those wind vane type would be better than what you have there. The mesh might be required in your case but not in mine.

 

[DriftWood]

Look for a different cap design. Least restriction up top there is the better. Even a different cap will need cleaning.

 

[wg_bent]

Your getting a lot of creosote build up. The stuff I took off of my cap last year mostly fell off when I dropped in on the lawn. The rest cleaned off with a glass cleaner. Is your stove burning hot enough? is the liner insulated? Is your wood wet?

Something needs to change.

 

[DavidV]

Two issues that I can pinpoint. Stove is steel plate. The cat chamber bolts to the inside top and it is warped. Was warped when I bought it so I jerry rigged it in a rebuild with lots of fiberglass cement and fiberglass gasketing.It has warped even more now...not sure if this is metal fatigue or a sign of overfirirng or both. I've tried to keep it properly sealed but I suspect some smoke is getting thru without going thru the cat. Cat is 3 years old so I'm not certain how effective it is working either. At the beginning of the season it was doing a bang up job though, so I don't suspect it.
Second issue is a load of wet wood my youngest brought in one morning. He pulled from a pile of wood that had been uncovered for the last year. There was probly even some green wood on that pile. We burned that wood for one day(I wasn't here). My wife just kept stuffing wood into the stove and burning with the door cracked, wondering why it wouldn't get hot. It was hissing terribly. I found out about 11pm that night when I got home. I immedeately took all the wood out of the bins and replaced it with seasoned wood but I think that really gave the gunk a good foothold.
As for the last cleaning....Well technically this chimney has never been cleaned....but that is because I installed it this year.

 

[Highbeam]

Come'on one day burning wet junk did that nasty job to your cap? There are people that burn nothing but wet junk all the time and they don't get a complete blockage like that. I suspect that the one day of junk was the straw breaking the camels back and that the cap was on its way to cloggage from day one.