Mid Season Cleaning

[remkel]

Did my mid season sweep of the flue tonight....couple of cups of powdery soot with a few flakes mixed in. I would have like to have seen less, but have been doing more cold starts than usual. May have run into some not so dry wood at the beginning of the season. All considered, I am happy for having burned since early October.

 

[etiger2007]

What kind of wood are you burning rem?

 

[remkel]

Maple almost exclusively, although the last two weeks have been a mix of maple, oak and birch.

 

[swagler85]

I'm gettin up there tomorrow to clean the chimney, looking forward to what I see in there.

 

[remkel]

I do not go on my roof....clean from the basement with a sooteater.....30 minutes and I am done without a single argument with gravity.

 

[swagler85]

I wanted to get one but was afraid to. My setup goes through my masonry wall about 16 inches then straight up. Was afraid of breaking sooteater rods. And doesn't make sense for me to buy sooteater if I gotta go up on the roof.

 

[remkel]

I wanted to get one but was afraid to. My setup goes through my masonry wall about 16 inches then straight up. Was afraid of breaking sooteater rods. And doesn't make sense for me to buy sooteater if I gotta go up on the roof.

No need to be afraid. The sooteater should make that turn without any problems. The rods are very flexible.

 

[katwillny]

I got one last year and it was the best thing, my daughter and I cleaned the pipe last year 3 times and it took about 15 to 20 minutes.

 

[PapaDave]

remkel, sounds almost exactly like what I found today when I swept. Most of it was at the top of the pipe and some in the cap.
Temps will be dropping again after Sunday, so should be easier to keep the flue clean.
I may get back up there in a couple months just to check.

 

[remkel]

remkel, sounds almost exactly like what I found today when I swept. Most of it was at the top of the pipe and some in the cap.
Temps will be dropping again after Sunday, so should be easier to keep the flue clean.
I may get back up there in a couple months just to check.

It seems with the new stove I am going to need two cleanings a year. Mid season and end of the season. Certainly beats the once a month I was doing in the past. Now that I am using the sooteater, I do not mind the process. Zip up, zip down, done. Obviously should I have to resort to some less than ideal wood I would have to consider an additional cleaning as I cannot look all the way up my flue to inspect it as there is an offset in the flue.

 

[etiger2007]

It took me about 25 minutes to clean the liner yesterday, thats dropping the baffle and two tubes and getting up on the roof and doing the cleaning. I have an old TV antenna that I use as my ladder. Soot eater may be a new toy for the future.

 

[James02]

I do not go on my roof....clean from the basement with a sooteater.....30 minutes and I am done without a single argument with gravity.

++++++++++1

 

[Ashful]

I've always been suspect of these sooteaters. They have all of the whips in a single plane, with no "height" to the whip assembly. It would seem that unless you proceed painfully slowly as you feed it up and down the pipe, you're likely to skip right over anything that doesn't fall out with just the slightest bump. No?

 

[BobUrban]

I am planning a clean-out on Monday and looking forward to seeing the difference my wood and new stove has over last years mid-season results. Monday because I will be out of town this weekend and will come home to a cold stove so good timing. I don't like the dog sitter running the stove so these are the only times I let the furnace fire up. I do not mind the girls turning up the heat around here and costing me a couple hundred bucks or so per winter in propane compare to the 12-1500$ I would spend before the stove install.

***report to follow Monday***

 

[turbocruiser]

I've always been suspect of these sooteaters. They have all of the whips in a single plane, with no "height" to the whip assembly. It would seem that unless you proceed painfully slowly as you feed it up and down the pipe, you're likely to skip right over anything that doesn't fall out with just the slightest bump. No?

No because the whips will sort of spread out while spinning and also no because you sort of spin it continuously while you also "cycle" the length of the rod backward and forward. In other words imagine a piston in a cylinder that not only travels up and down but rotates rapidly at the same time. Unless you start and stop on the trigger of the drill while you were cycling it, it would actually be pretty hard to miss the stuff you're shooting for. It is a surprisingly effective, fast and safe system.

Edit: One thing that I have learned though is that it is better to have the whips slightly longer than necessary as opposed to slightly shorter than necessary because that way the whips are always in contact with the whole circumference (can "circumference" be used to describe the interior of circle? Hmm, I dunno! Anyway you get the point!) of the chimney whereas if the whips are too short to stay in contact I could see how spots were missed because now it was like the piston was pumping and rotating but loose within the cylinder. Hope that makes some sense?