Hey fellas, I am kinda confused. Last year was my first year burning a wood furnace and as some of you may know it's a Clayton. Now being it was my first year I religiously cleaned the chimney weekly even during the winter because I have an access cap on the ground and can clean it from the bottom up. I have a baro damper installed between the furnace and chimney, which I installed through alot of recommendations including US stove company. I was having trouble with cresote building up in the almost 4ft run of flu before it went into the chimney. Especially on the baro damper, it was a real pain trying to keep clean with the gooey, sticky mess. However, Iast year I ran for prob a month without touching the chimney at the end of the burning season so this year I was expecting to see a build up of cresote in my chimney. However when I open the access hole about 5 or 6 cups or granulated cresote fell out, then I stuck my inspection mirror in to get a look at how much work I had ahead of me. Amazingly, there was basically nothing in the chimney at all, it's the cleanest I've seen it yet!? I even chimbed ontop of the roof to see if there was build up at the very top where cresote tens to stick to the pipe, there was basically nothing yet again. How can this be? How can I keep the horizontal run of flu pipe clean on its way to the chimney? I was going to install a pipe damper this year to try instead of the baro because of the hassel it caused me last year however now I'm not so sure.
Perplexed After Chimney Cleaning
- Thread starter Woodenator
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brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
You may have had a chimney fire cleaned it up for you...
Eh maybe, I don't think so. There was some granulated cresote in the pipe but 1 swipe with the chimney brush took it out. How would you even tell if there was a chimney fire? Everything looks fine to me...
Yea you would think, I read a few places that the opposite occurs, don't think I believe it though. Damper settings never changed cause I have a manometer permanently installed onto the flue. I clead the baro whenever it got sticky or had to adjust it due to cresote building up on the flapper of the baro. Wood was was dry some could have been dried another year but I was desperate and had to burn what I could find/given. I also only ran it for a month or so without cleaning so maybe it takes longer than that to build up or maybe it sitting for a year made the cresote dry out and flake off the walls, I honestly don't know. One said a chimney fore can do that and I agree however I didn't see any evidence of a chimney fire, you would have thought it would have cleaned out my pipe heading to the chimney also. The flue running to the chimney still has cresote in it, ofcourse the pipe is almost dead horizontal which doesn't help, that alone maybe be why there is so much more in there than the chimney, well that and the baro contributed to that I'm sure.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
About the only thing you can do to clean up an old smoke dragon is to feed it 15% MC wood, and run it hard! In warmer weather you can do smaller loads with more air...
hobbyheater
Minister of Fire
hobbyheater
Minister of Fire
Them barrows cause problems and of course that horz. run. I had bottom of the line US Stove wood/coal unit with a barrow in the line, Never seemed to make much difference in operation. Just that it was a hassle all the time . Pulled and replaced with standard piece of pipe. Burn time didn't change. Never did have much in the flue pipe except at the very top . Screen would plug so I pulled that out also. Maybe 20" foot or so in vertical length. Had an auto damper on it which never worked correctly from get go. would always stick wide open. Blocked it and just used the spin damper at the bottom of the fire box.
My chimney is stainless double wall. Just the small section going to the chimney is regular stive pipe and I can't change that over cause the previous owner ran it through the rock wall foundation. I plan on taking the baro out to to try a key damper instead and see how that works. I don't run the thing at night just during the day. Said I have close 6 cords of wood put up but I hope that's enough for the old smoke dragon. I usually don't have to start using the wood furnace till mid November until April.
Ok I have been burning for a few weeks when needed. I took 2 pictures of the horizontal section of my flue that runs into the chimney. Can I get some opinions on what I am seeing? Good or bad?
![[Hearth.com] Perplexed After Chimney Cleaning](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/screenshot_20241104_130503_gallery-webp.331497/ "[Hearth.com] Perplexed After Chimney Cleaning")
This one was taken on Oct 25th.
![[Hearth.com] Perplexed After Chimney Cleaning](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/screenshot_20241104_130414_gallery-webp.331498/ "[Hearth.com] Perplexed After Chimney Cleaning")
This 1 was taken today Nov 4th.
I am burning mostly ash with some black locust mixed it. I'm also getting alot of black soot and ash inside my firebox. I tend to keep the flue 330 degrees on this section. This picture was also taken from the outside looking towards my furnace.
This one was taken on Oct 25th.
This 1 was taken today Nov 4th.
I am burning mostly ash with some black locust mixed it. I'm also getting alot of black soot and ash inside my firebox. I tend to keep the flue 330 degrees on this section. This picture was also taken from the outside looking towards my furnace.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Yeah that looks like a lot for a few weeks...at least it's brown n fluffy, not black n shiny.
That's what I thought aswell as far as color, however it looked like alot of build up for such a short time burning. I read somewhere about Ash producing more ash and soot than other kinds of wood, I have no clue if that's true or not. Atleast it's not black and shiny like last year. Plus I been using the top down fire exclusively aswell and it seems to really help with cold start creosote and intermittent warming fires. Also bren, I now have almost 8 cords put up. This last few trips I have gotten a solid 2 cords of standing dead Black Locust. Once I get my newest crib full ill have 10 cords for this year and hopefully a decent start for next year.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
It's a dirty burner, and lots of cold starts like you are doing makes for more buildup too.
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
Ash can be a lovely wood which can be harvested "ready to burn". However, if you measured a fresh split with a moisture meter you could rule out moisture content in your wood. Some dead stuff is much wetter than you think.
Yes, i added in a manual pipe damper to try instead. The Mpd definitely solved my cresote problem i was having before. It also makes the furnace more controllable than with a baro. The bad side to that though is a have to keep turning the mpd to adjust for draft or windy conditions. Even then it will spike to a .08 or .09 with the mpd turned down to a .05.
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