Rugged day cleaning out stoves and chimneys.

[elkimmeg]

I think I'm starting to feel my age. But at least I ready for the burning season. Every year I disconnect each stove haul it out to the driveway and remove as much as possible to clean it.

Part of the cleaning process is blowing it out with compressed air. It creates a dust cloud, that will expose every l air leak and expose gaskets that will need to be replaced.

Fly ash has a way of robbing stove performance. My wife would kill me if I did thin the house so it has to be done outside Its a combination of using a air compressor and a blow gun with intermittent shop Vac I also clean out the Cat combustors connector pipe and chimney for two stoves .

This will be the third season with the after market combustor and it shows no signs of degradation The oem combustor in the Encore still looks good.

The good news is the stoves are ready re installed .Might fire one tonight.

BB I really don't know how many more years I will be dragging the 400 lb beast out of the house This year it seemed to be a lot more work.. I have some good news I found no leaks and currently all gaskets make a decent seal


One hint and I had a few anxious moments For the first time ever I pulled my home made flue cleaner up as usual But decided to pull it back down which I never did before I got it stuck

I should follow my own advice and had a rope to be able to pull in both directions should it get stuck that would been the smart thing but I learned the hard way What I ended up doing was nailing 2/4's together and ramming my chicken wire cleaner down finally it released and I was able to get it out. This is a bit trick fully extended las rung on a 32' ladder. If this was not a family forum, I would be able to really express my true feelings up there trying to wrestle 30 ' of nailed together 2/4's and ramming it down All that effort to get about a coffee can of soot and crap.. Time to watch the on going 4:00 football games after a trip to the re fridge to get a cold one.

Stove #2 also a cat stove 20 years old with still the original interior parts. I have the one that ignites at 380 firebox temps for secondary combustion. No waiting around filling the atmosphere with smoke for the internal fire box temps to reach 1000 degrees. Entering the third year with this after market combustor fully intact clean up a breeze from my air compressor ready to go.

 

[BrotherBart]

Time to let them stay on the hearth and just clean them out from now on Elk. Figure it this way. Moving a cast stove just increases the chances of creating leaks from possibly moving the cemented joints. Makes a good story and reason to not lug them outside. It is the time in life that we both need to stop lugging wood stoves.

BTW: Stuck a brush myself on the basement flue this year. I have always used two ropes and couldn't easily find the screw on eyelet for the bottom of the brush and said "oh heck it never sticks". It stuck. Punched it out with those fiber glass rods I used once and hated and another brush.

Burn happy old buddy.

 

[Michael6268]

I hear ya on the age thing. I cleaned all my flues in the spring, but hating the job of cleaning the smoke chamber on the open fireplace, of course I left that as long as possible. Well Friday was the day. Oh I hate that job! No matter how you look at it, unless your a 20 year old kid, that job is a pain in the rear (and back) No matter what, you always end up getting a face full of soot and have to be a contortionist to reach up there! Well thank goodness its done! Till next year when I will be another year older and it will be that much more a pain!

 

[elkimmeg]

I must admit, I love to give the middle finger , when pointing to the east towards Opec nations, when the oil tank does not need to be filled.
Being able to do that is priceless and not adding to my credit card balance ..

BB I think this may be the last year of hauling them outside. It took almost the whole day to get it done with 2 stoves. and some not ready for prime time here words, passed my lips.

Finally the wedding experience has passed, well I think. I have 3 additional dogs while the happy couple travel Europe. Monday my wife did something and her back is killing her.

Now I have all the household chores to complete on top of my normal seasonal stuff. She can't lift a thing above 5 lbs. This age thing may kill me yet. Today she went to CT to visit her
mother, who is not progressing all that well either. unfortunately I thought I would be coasting this fall, but it has turned out not to be the case

 

[Todd]

Jeez, that sounds like alot of work to remove a little fly ash. What about using a shop vac outside with an extra long hose to reach inside to the stove? My 500 lb stove is staying put and it gets vacuumed out at the end of the season.

How do you clean those new cat combusters? Can you blow them off with compressed air?

 

[Stevebass4]

elk i'm 5 minutes away should have sent me a pm.. i would have given you a hand

 

[Gunner]

Elk, do yourself a favour spend the 8 bucks and get the right tool for the job. They make chimney brushes, stop messing with that old ball of chicken wire....you'll graduate some day. ;-P

 

[Todd]

Oh Oh, :bug:

 

[elkimmeg]

Web its your place: if you get your jollies by posting yesterdays news about model runs so be it

Pimping stoves : I made no mention of models or manufactures. in the post. Pimpinng ususlly someone gets restitution in the form of money. I have never received one cent
They did give me a stove for the donor program. It was installed in a home replacing a 20 year old stove.. Lets be fair, no other manufactures has donated a stove
to help others here, that I know of. Pimping in this case, is help an aging ex Marine, that has had major health issues.. I would do that again.. In this case vollenteer help came from
the local VFW membership.

I too can remember incidents where Down east had to replace his new cast iron top from a major manufacturer. Note I did not name the manufacture here or I would be stooping
to your level . I remember the baffle plates falling off another manufacture 's stove. I remember secondary air tubs that looked like pretzels. I remember another member haulling his stove to a factory for a replacement.

One of our moderators figured out his stove had the top installed backwards again from another prominent manufactures

If you want I can start a new post about past issues with all stoves and not bash one manufacturer constantly.

I remember being ridiculed by webwidow for looking so dirty an unkept, by helping a fellow member disassemble the stove I gave him.
I also remember not too many jumping in there offering a hand. I also remember I was left there working on the stove while others just left me there to pick up all my tools and load my splitter, while they adjurned to the home. I must credit JP for helping me load up the truck and offered me a beer. (BTW the only offer of food or beberage in the 5+ hours I was there)
I brought plenty of gasket material to re-gasket the necessary replacement on that very stove. The only reason I brought the gaskets, was that webwidow was claimed to like doing them

Yeah my memory capacities are still quite good

 

[Michael6268]

Does anyone else have any idea how the hell this post went in this direction??? Or did I miss something?? It seems that certain people just post something to someone else wherever they want, and it has nothing to do with the post!!

 

[elkimmeg]

Mike blame me I got distracted

 

[webbie]

Elk or someone else edited his original post and removed some offending material........I though maybe he thought twice, but I guess he didn't.....

My goodness, Elkky, don't you even let up? Time to relax, enjoy your stove, help other folks and stop challenging everybody to duels....