Holy Cow!!! Creosote - Suggestions

[adb3]

This morning i cleaned the chimney after using our new VC Defiant for 5 weeks; what a creosote buildup I have been burning wood for 25 yrs in a fireplace, Franklin stove and fireplace insert, and have never seen so much creosote in such a short time. I'm in FL and we have had 15 days below freezing during Dec. The wood is a yr old, so it's well seasoned. I use a thermometer on the griddle and i know that in the all night burns it gets down to 200- 300; is all this creosote from the low temp? Most of the wood is oak, primarily hard oak, but a little soft.

Any suggestions for getting the creosote off the inside of the stove pipe? I scraped the buildup off the chimney cap and as much as i could i brushed out the pipe.

Is there anything else that you can tell me about heavy creosote buildup?

Thanks for your help!

 

[NH_Wood]

I'm not familiar with soft oaks, if that is what you meant, but Florida likely has oaks that I'm not too familiar with. Around here, oak nearly always needs a good two years before it is well seasoned. I'm guessing that you have high humidity where you are, and one year for oak sounds iffy. Are you getting any hissing, black glass, etc. as an indicator of poorly seasoned wood? If you wood is indeed well seasoned, you need to start burning hotter. Perhaps a small hot fire to really get the draft moving would be good prior to loading the oak. Also, are you letting the load get well charred and engulfed in flame before starting to dial back the air? Don't let the fire smolder during the early stages with the wood is outgassing. Keep us posted on how you are fairing with the problem. Cheers!

 

[remkel]

I run an old VC Vigilant and also have a lot of creosote.

NH Wood is onto the right track with his suggestions. I have tried everything from burning hotter, to additional wood seasoning, to even trying burning aluminum cans...still have to clean the chimney about every 4 weeks or so.

Good luck with it.

 

[branchburner]

Is this the cat, non-cat, or 2-in-1 combo?

 

[adb3]

Thanks for your inputs!! I've got several things i can checkout. The wood is pretty dry after a yr, i also have 2 yr old wood that is very dry! The 1 yr stuff has hard splinters and i believe it's good since that's what i usually burn in my insert and the old Franklin. In those 2 units i had no sticky buildup. In fact, i cleaned the chimney for the Franklin before the start of the season and it was really clean with pretty much no buildup. With the Franklin, a fire was dead 2 hrs after i closed it up for the night, we burned with only the door open or completely closed.
Good pt on the hissing, but none of that. I probably am not letting the wood i add before bedtime get charred enough. i usually add wood about 15-30 minutes before i go to bed and turn the air control (ac) down when i go to bed. What is your process for adding a load before bed time?
I soaked the chimney cap with EasyOff oven cleaner twice yesterday and let it soak for 6 hrs and 2 hrs. the buildup was as thick as a latex coat of paint on the inside top of the cap. I finally took a putty knife and scraped the creosote off after the 2nd soaking with EasyOff. The chimney was a crusty mess inside, scraping didn't do much to remove the hard layer. I used the steel brush and a putty knife with min results on the pipe.
My stove is a non-cat.

thanks!! i' try to implement NH Woods recommendations.

 

[branchburner]

My stove is a downdraft, like yours, and does not like one-year oak. Are you shutting the air gradually? I go from full to half to 1/4 air, over about a half-hour. Even with air at 1/4, my oak sometimes smolders if I don't char it enough first. With other wood, or small splits, I can close the air all the way.

When you shut the air down, are you getting any visible smoke outside? Obviously you can't check at night, but try during daylight to burn just the way you would at night, and see if the afterburner is stalling by checking for smoke.

 

[firefighterjake]

This morning i cleaned the chimney after using our new VC Defiant for 5 weeks; what a creosote buildup I have been burning wood for 25 yrs in a fireplace, Franklin stove and fireplace insert, and have never seen so much creosote in such a short time. I'm in FL and we have had 15 days below freezing during Dec. The wood is a yr old, so it's well seasoned. I use a thermometer on the griddle and i know that in the all night burns it gets down to 200- 300; is all this creosote from the low temp? Most of the wood is oak, primarily hard oak, but a little soft. As mentioned, most folks suggest seasoning oak two years before use . . . by "soft" I'm wondering if you mean it was a bit punky . . . in which case punky wood can sometimes suck up moisture . . . of course being on the opposite end from you there may be oaks in Florida known as hard and soft oaks vs. red oak, white oak, etc. that I am not familiar with . . . if in fact this is oak and punky oak at that, it may in fact not be as well seasoned as you believe which can create creosote. That said, cooling temps in the chimney also play a factor in creating creosote . . .
Any suggestions for getting the creosote off the inside of the stove pipe? I scraped the buildup off the chimney cap and as much as i could i brushed out the pipe.

Is there anything else that you can tell me about heavy creosote buildup? If the creosote looks like burned popcorn . . . simply brushing it should suffice. If the creosote is hard and shiny you may need to use chemicals to remove the creosote . . . available from either a chimney sweep or you can use a solution found at woodstove shops, TSP, chimney sweeping logs, etc. which will remove the hard creosote over time.
Thanks for your help!

 

[firefighterjake]

Thanks for your inputs!! I've got several things i can checkout. The wood is pretty dry after a yr, i also have 2 yr old wood that is very dry! How do you define pretty dry . . . I mean the reason I ask is that the wood I split just this past Fall looks pretty dry . . . some even has cracks . . . but it is nowhere near ready to burn . . . sometimes there can be a difference between looking dry and actually being dry. Perhaps a better way of telling if this wood is seasoned enough -- short of buying a moisture meter, resplitting the wood and testing it -- is to take a look at the wood once you reload the stove . . . if the splits are hising or spitting or bubbling water out of the end for a few minutes your wood may not be as dry as you thought . . . if the glass is blackening up often or the fire takes forever to get going your wood may not be as dry . . . that said . . . two years of seasoning should be good. The 1 yr stuff has hard splinters and i believe it's good since that's what i usually burn in my insert and the old Franklin. Lots of wood has splinters . . . seeing splinters is not how we would define whether wood is ready to burn or not . . . also, many folks find that less than optimal wood burned OK in pre-EPA stoves . . . but not so great in EPA stoves. Some folks find this to be a drawback to the new stoves . . . others . . . once they have good wood and see how cleanly and efficiently they can burn in the EPA stoves soon find the new stoves to be quite desirable. In those 2 units i had no sticky buildup. In fact, i cleaned the chimney for the Franklin before the start of the season and it was really clean with pretty much no buildup. With the Franklin, a fire was dead 2 hrs after i closed it up for the night, we burned with only the door open or completely closed.
Good pt on the hissing, but none of that. OK, that's a good sign. I probably am not letting the wood i add before bedtime get charred enough. i usually add wood about 15-30 minutes before i go to bed and turn the air control (ac) down when i go to bed. What is your process for adding a load before bed time? I usually add wood a half hour or so before I go to bed too . . . but what I do is use my stove top and flue thermometers to wait until the temps are up enough before I start turning down the air . . . and then I turn down the air in quarter mark increments every 5-10 minutes . . . stopping long enough to make sure the fire continues to burn and doesn't suffocate . . . eventually I can get the air down to the quarter mark or less . . . which may or may not work for you or others as a lot depends on the stove itself, local conditions, wood quality and the chimney. You might try doing what you are doing . . . but just turn down the air a little at a time . . . if the fire continues to burn well . . . turn down the air a little more. I soaked the chimney cap with EasyOff oven cleaner twice yesterday and let it soak for 6 hrs and 2 hrs. the buildup was as thick as a latex coat of paint on the inside top of the cap. I finally took a putty knife and scraped the creosote off after the 2nd soaking with EasyOff. The chimney was a crusty mess inside, scraping didn't do much to remove the hard layer. I used the steel brush and a putty knife with min results on the pipe.
My stove is a non-cat. You might want to check in with a woodstove shop and see if they don't have some of the stuff that you either spray on the fire or burn in the fire to remove the hard, shiny creosote.
thanks!! i' try to implement NH Woods recommendations.

 

[hh3f]

Just so people get the facts straight and can help you. Can you please clarify how many stoves and chimneys do you have in your house and are any of them sharing the same flue. Also does your chimney have a liner. I usually don't comment ,just like to read but maybe its me but I'm a little confused by your post. Good luck

 

[BrotherBart]

Just so people get the facts straight and can help you. Can you please clarify how many stoves and chimneys do you have in your house and are any of them sharing the same flue. Also does your chimney have a liner. I usually don't comment ,just like to read but maybe its me but I'm a little confused by your post. Good luck

He has a new VC Defiant burning into a eight inch 14 foot high through the roof chimney. Nothing to line.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

adb3, another point that has not been brought up is the question of how you are drying your wood? Just because wood has been cut, split and stacked does not mean it will dry in x amount of time. For example, I know of a couple instances near us where one man cut a huge supply of wood and he did not need to break into that wood that year, but the next. So, he simply stacked it after it was split and left it.....but covered the entire pile! I mean he wrapped it up tight and there was no way for the moisture to evaporate.

The other fellow cut his wood one winter planning to burn it the following winter. After he split the wood, he stacked it right into his garage....where there was no air circulation. What do you suppose happened to these two fellows? Both had their wood put up pretty decently as for time but neither of them thought about the drying process. They just assumed the wood would be okay after a year or two. Sorry, that won't work.

Wood needs air and time. Some try to shortcut this process but usually end up with very poor results and a lot of frustration.

 

[adb3]

I split my wood and stack it outside without cover. I live in NW FL and although we have high humidity, most things dry in a short time. we do get a lot of rain, but i store a weeks supply or more in my barn so i always have dry wood. it's open in the barn, but doesn't rain on the stored wood. The outside wood that's to be moved or burned next is covered with a tarp, that's after being outside for a yr. i also get a lot of deadfall wood. You won't believe some of the stuff i find in the woods (i live in a rural area which is mostly forested). I have picked up aged cedar, so dry it's white, and other hard woods that are like a rock when you hit them with an axe.

That said, i do get a lot of build up on the glass of my new VC Defiant. I have used the same process for my wood for yrs and not had this problem with my Country Flame insert (it is not an EPA stove). the CF is an air tight and fairly efficient, but has no secondary burning.

thanks all for your suggestions!

 

[adb3]

firefighterjake --- we have several oak varieties here - live, red, black, white, water, turkey, blackjack ... i prefer the hard ones, but i do get some of the others with a hard inner core and softer outside ( you have to use these before they rot into dust, but not until they are dry).. if the soft ones get rained on, they do absorb a lot of water, so i don't use them in that situation.
We don't have many fireplace shops here. we have 1 place that sells fireplace inserts and will order you a stove, but they don't stock supplies. there are a few chimney sweeps, but none have a store front, they all operate on cell phone businesses. i drove 100 miles to see the stove we finally bought. I'll research your TSP and other creosote reducers. Years ago we could buy the powder(crystals) creosote removed in hardware stores locally, now you can't find much of anything.
I don't know what "punky" wood is. Do you mean soft oak that rots in about 1 -2 yrs?
I don't have the burning wood hissing or bubbling on the ends. But i do leave some big chunks in for overnight. I am use to the PRE EPA stoves. I have tried closing the damper on the VC Defiant a couple of times, but don't really have feel for how this works. Based on the owner's manual, it should produce a more efficient burn. Wouldn't this lower the burn temp? i have a griddle thermometer and try to keep things in the 450 range, but at night it goes to 200 - 300..
I'll try the gradual turn down and see how that works.

I need something for the shiny hard creosote in the pipe and the tar like creosote on the cap.
Thanks for sharing your expertise!!

 

[Joe Matthews]

By Punky, he is referring to wood that is a bit soft, especially on the outside edges and a bit damp. Basically it is in the beginning stages of rotting...

 

[branchburner]

I have tried closing the damper on the VC Defiant a couple of times, but don't really have feel for how this works.

This type of stove takes some getting used to, and is quite different from the older stoves. With damper closed, the smoke path goes through a chamber in the back of the stove, where the smoke is "re-burned" under the right conditions - those conditions include good draft and a very hot fire with a deep coal bed.

When you reload on coals, get some smaller splits in there, too, and burn it hot for awhile before closing the bypass damper. Then gradually shut back the air, but not all the way. Try getting some temp readings from your flue, and also from the back of the stove.

 

[adb3]

Just wanted to thank everyone for your suggestions/help! I'm burning smaller fires and keeping the temp in the 450-500 range which seems to help. Turning the a/c down a little at a time before going to bed seems to help also.

thanks again for your invaluable help!!

 

[remkel]

Sounds like you are on the right track.