Glazed Creosote in Smoke Chamber - Can I attack it?

[cattynat]

We burn our fireplace very often during the season and have it cleaned once a year, occassionally twice if we go through more than a cord of wood. The fireplace was built in the 60's or 70's and is oversized for the flue and the smoke chamber's huge so I guess there's lots of opportunity for creosote to build up. January 2005, we had a TSR treatment done to get rid of the glazed creosote that the regular sweeping didn't get. Now the glaze is back. The sweep who came last week wants to do CreAway treatments, to the tune of almost $400 -- and frankly I don't have that in my budget at all. It also seems like a helluva charge, esp. after $179 for a standard bottom-up sweep (after which I still have soot on the damper shelf, btw -- I don't know if he figured I'd definitley order the add-on service and didn't bother to clean up well or what). Anyway...

I see I can purchase CreAway online and am thinking of doing the treatments and additional cleanings myself (as a pretty decent do it yourselfer) before the season gets under way. Any reactions to this? Any experiences using this product, esp. in the smoke chamber? Would I just remove the damper and brush the chamber with a wire brush once I've done enough teatments? Any help or info will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Shane]

Yeah you just squeeze it into the damper. Seems like he's doing the same I do. Sweep it, treat it and sweep again in two weeks. From our store you'd be looking at a total around 200.00 but if your sweeps are 179.00 I wouldn't say he's gouging you.

 

[cattynat]

Thanks for the reply.
No, he's isn't necessarily gauging me for the first cleaning, although it's priced pretty high and the job was less than thorough.
But the thing is, after that first 20-minute cleaning ($179) and then the treatments ($379), I'll be paying $558, which seems insane to me. Seriously. Not based on what the treatment entails (puffing some inexpensive dry chemicals in, having me make a few fires, and then coming back to sweep). Especially if there's a safe alternative (me doing it).
Of course, if glazed creosote in the chamber is a fire hazard, I want to take care of it right away but I'd much rather do the treatments myself. It doesn't seem like a huge deal to apply the CreAway as instructed, have a few small fires, reapply as needed, etc., and then sweep, as long as I have the right equipment. Even if I need to call a sweep back in for the cleaning, I'd save a couple hundred bucks. I can get 3 or 4 applications' worth of CreAway for less than $20, from what I can tell. And a good brush and poles for around $100, which I can use every season, at least for the mid-season sweeping if I still want to have a professional come in every spring or fall.
Sound reasonable?

 

[elkimmeg]

Getting rid of the cresote is one part of the problem burning correctly is the other part. Which could eliminate glazed cresote in the first place The first culprit I would suspect the ash clean out door being too loose and introducing cool air causing condensation and the formation of cresote. the next thing I would examine is the moisture containt of your wood wet wood also produces cresote t more water vapor added to that chimney for condensation. Explain your burning habits the wood you use how often you burn your flue size and verticle length of your chimney glass doors in front whether you burn open or closed your whole routine.

Did you know an open fireplace is the least effecient way of trying to heat with ? Infact you lose 10 times more heat up your chimney than produced to the living space . that chimney draws out heated air?

 

[cattynat]

Yes, you're absolutely right. We must be doing something wrong to run into glazed creosote again this quickly. Normally, we order wood in the spring, stack it up, and let it wait until the fall to burn it. Last fall, we ordered "seasoned wood" in the fall and burned that. The wood is stacked but not usually covered. We usually bring a few days' worth of wood into the garage, out of the weather, before it's used. But the dryness of the wood varies: sometimes it's very dry and burns clean, other times it sizzles and smokes and/or weeps. Kind of luck of the draw! We often burn every day, for many days at a stretch. We don't have doors on the fireplace, just a screen. The flue is about 8 x 12" and the chimney only goes up a single story, about 18-20 feet(?) in length overall. The fireplace is in our family room, which sits between the main house and the garage, and the ash door is not open to outside air. The back of the chimney is in the garage.
Obviously, we're going to need to hone our fire burning habits -- this forum is a big help already! -- but in the meantime, I'm trying to determine if my plan to do CreAway treatments myself is viable. Or does anyone else have another favorite method?
Thanks, again, for everyone's input, I really appreciate it.
P.S. Yes, I know we're not really gaining heat from the fireplace but it's in the center of our living area and we really like having fires in the winter. However, I didn't know we were LOSING so much heat up the chimney! Hmm. Not cool. Nonetheless, I need to get this glazing problem taken care of, right?