Hi, all! I've been reading threads here from time to time for years, but just now signed up, and this is my first post.
We got a Lopi Revere insert several years ago and love it, but have had problems with a sticky bypass damper. The cause seems to be creosote debris that falls down the chimney and accumulates, gradually clogging up and jamming the sliding mechanism.
Despite following all the usual rules: burning only very well-seasoned wood, getting new fires off to a hot, quick start, and not "damping down" fresh wood loads too early in a burn cycle, we still get pesky creosote accumulations in the top four or five feet of the two-story chimney. It's not the worst, glazed stuff, just loose flaky crud, and some of it inevitably falls back down the pipe, where it eventually jams the bypass damper. If it were just a one-story chimney, I don't think there would be any significant accumulation at all... but the longer pipe seems to thwart all of our efforts to avoid creosote, and cooling of the vapors in the top few feet has resulted in seemingly inevitable deposits up there.
I clean the chimney myself two or three times per season, and have lately tried to shop-vac the worst of it out from the top, but quite a bit still falls back down the tube.
Don't want to have to pay someone to come over and pull the stove every year for a bottom-end cleanup, and I'm not eager to attempt that job myself. Is this a common complaint, especially for longer chimney runs?
We got a Lopi Revere insert several years ago and love it, but have had problems with a sticky bypass damper. The cause seems to be creosote debris that falls down the chimney and accumulates, gradually clogging up and jamming the sliding mechanism.
Despite following all the usual rules: burning only very well-seasoned wood, getting new fires off to a hot, quick start, and not "damping down" fresh wood loads too early in a burn cycle, we still get pesky creosote accumulations in the top four or five feet of the two-story chimney. It's not the worst, glazed stuff, just loose flaky crud, and some of it inevitably falls back down the pipe, where it eventually jams the bypass damper. If it were just a one-story chimney, I don't think there would be any significant accumulation at all... but the longer pipe seems to thwart all of our efforts to avoid creosote, and cooling of the vapors in the top few feet has resulted in seemingly inevitable deposits up there.
I clean the chimney myself two or three times per season, and have lately tried to shop-vac the worst of it out from the top, but quite a bit still falls back down the tube.
Don't want to have to pay someone to come over and pull the stove every year for a bottom-end cleanup, and I'm not eager to attempt that job myself. Is this a common complaint, especially for longer chimney runs?
