Illustrated bottom up chimney sweep

[Poindexter]

I have searched for this thread a few times over the years and am finally taking the time to write it. A fair number of us are doing it this way, likely all with slight variations on the theme and I welcome comments about "what I do different" because I might start doing it your way.

I have two driving factors in my process. 1. I live in a two story home. Going up on the roof in winter to brush from the top down is just not in the cards. 2. I have a grey tile hearth and off white carpet in the stove room, happy spouse, happy house, so I have found a method that keeps the house pretty darn clean.

Last night i was able to do the whole thing in 20 minutes, from cold assembled stove ready to clean to cold assembled stove ready to load and light.

The first thing I do is do what I have to do to lift the telescope, then lift the telescope, and hold it up with 2 pieces of masking tape about 6" long each. My telescope is a fairly tight fit and will stay up just with friction, until the worst possible moment, so I tape it up.



Sometimes I get a little cloud of crud out as the layers of telescope scrape by each other. If I hear scraping and rattling in the first couple inches of lift I will get my trashbag under the open end of the telescope while lifting. Not needed this time.

I am going to vaccuum at the end, and I am not going to illustrate that.

Next is to get the trash bag set up. Here I have a trash bag laid out with the first cleaning rod stuck through the bag and out the mouth, then the end of the first cleaning rod screwed onto the brush, the chimney brush still in its box so as not to get crud all over.



Local I found Rutland three foot fiberglass rods, kinda flexible. Mine do say MiC on the package, there may be other products on Amazon. These are not milspec, the weak spot is the threaded metal connections are prone to galling though I haven't cross threaded one yet.

If I am hearing crusties lifting the telescope i would do this step on the stove top without taking the trash bag out from under the pipe.

Next is to get the brush started in the pipe, while catching all the crud coming out in the trash bag.



Doesn't look like much crud, but this stuff is tenacious on anything white.

Next step is to tape the mouth of the bag to the bottom of the pipe.



In my corner install I have the 3 foot length of rod stashed behind the stove, in the wall corner. While pushing the rod up the pipe you want to make sure the bag isn't also going up the pipe. It will tear easily for one thing, and cleanup will get harder in a hurry.

I am pretty sure I am limited to four pics per post...BRB

Here is where I stop stop pushing up and attach the next piece of rod.


From this picture I will step forward with the next rod in my right hand. Grasp the rod in the pipe with my left hand and bend it towards the wall corner behind the stove, hold it bent with my left hand, and then screw on the next rod with my right hand. This takes some practice, cause you are leaning over the stove and the rod in the pipe is only kinda flexible, and you don't want to be flexing the telescope against that expensive doohickey in the ceiling framing.

Just keep pushing up, keep the bag from going up the pipe, keep adding rod until you get to the top. You gonna want to jiggle the bag every little bit too to get the nasties down in the bag, but not coming out the hole you put the rod through. If you can get it done in 30 minutes the third time you are doing well, the main thing here is to prevent a lengthy painful room clean up.

So here I am coming back out with the brush down at the mouth of the telescope, nasties in the bag and one length of rod still on the brush. When the brush comes out the bristles are going to spring out some with plenty of force to rip the bag, and every bristle is going to sling some crud. So I want the brush to exit the pipe down in the bag.



So I move the bag. Remember this is all about preventing more cleanup later.



And the brush is out.



Now I have the bag and brush off the pipe.



Without getting my finger sliced by the dropping telescope BTW.

Here is the filthy brush back in the box, collected nasties are down in the bag to the right of the box.



My rods came in a reasonably heavy plastic envelope, I am still using that. They are pretty much either in the envelope, in the pipe or in my hand moving between those two places.

Here is my collected nasties from probably about four cords of spruce.



Which is why I didn't hear anything falling when I lifted the telescope- there just wasn't much in there.

Next up is clean the bypass door gasket on my stove.



I personally do my brushing with the bypass door open, that is off the gasket but protecting the back of the combustor so any falling debris goes into the firebox or maybe sticks to the door gasket. It is a disputable matter about which I choose to not be dogmatic. If you want to vacuum in there go ahead, I brush the bypass door gasket off as the very last step before lowering the telescope- ie after vacuuming those times I do vacuum .

This last one is the paint brush dedicated for sweeping the bypass door gasket back in its home next to the pipe brush.



That's it. Put the stove back together and fire it up.