Soot Buildup Question

[spitfire557]

Hello all,

I purchased a new house this year which has a wood stove as supplemental heat. I am completely new to wood burning and have learned most of my knowledge from this site. I had the chimney swept professionally before ever lighting a fire in it this fall (November 15th).

With that said, we have burned approximately 1.5 cords of wood so far this year (mixed seasoned hardwoods, unknown moisture content, but comes from a well regarded local guy) so I decided to tear the stove pipe off and see how everything looked. I was rather surprised when I discovered a generous coating of soot on all of the black pipe near the stove. This prompted me to climb on the roof and have a look down in, and was also surprised by the amount of soot.

I haven't seen any creosote, and I've cleaned all of the easily accessible single wall pipe, but I was unable to clean out any of the double wall piping. Gave the chimney sweep a call and he is off until next week. Would this amount of soot scare anyone from burning until it's addressed, or should I be okay?

Like I said, I'm completely new to this and would rather be safe than sorry. Stove is an Englander 2500 and I monitor my flue temps rather meticulously with an Auber Instruments wireless thermometer (always 350-450*).

Thanks!!

 

[spitfire557]

Any advice. Calling for negative temps tonight

 

[Tar12]

Why cant you clean the double wall pipe? It needs it for sure...you have a sooteater cleaning system? You have the drill setting there that will be needed..

 

[T-roy_]

Looks like a lot of creo. I’d personally sweep it. Your wood probably isn’t dry enough if you bought it this year. Firewood sellers almost never sell “seasoned” wood. Get a moisture meter, bring a split indoors to warm it to room temperature re-split and test on the freshly split face. Then you will know...

 

[spitfire557]

Thanks for the response guys!

I do not have the soot eater system, but I will be sure to pick one up. I used a regular 6" chimney brush to clean the single wall pipe.

The double wall pipe runs through the house's original foundation (horizontally) and into the crawl space of an addition. It then turns 90* upwards and runs vertically, exiting through the roof. The issue is that as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to access the cleanout at that 90* bend in the crawl space. For some unknown reason, the previous owner decided not to put an access door into this crawl space.

My worry is that when I sweep the double wall, it'll push all of the soot/creosote into the cleanout portion of the 90*, and then I'll be stuck with no way of emptying that cleanout. As for how the professional chimney sweep managed to get it cleaned out - I have no idea. Unfortunately I wasn't around when he did it, but I'm going to assume he used a vacuum of some variety to get down there and suck out the pile of soot.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[T-roy_]

Shopvac?

 

[Tar12]

What is the length of that horizontal run? Can you look into it and see the elbow in the 90? If so it may be a short enough run that you can attach some extra length of rigid light weight PVC pipe or something similar to reach it and vac it out. Got a picture of that 90 area? I would be figuring something out to make it easier to clean out.

 

[spitfire557]

If I were to guess, the length of the horizontal run is about 6 feet. I suppose rigging up some PVC to attach to the shop vac wouldn't be too difficult, but like you said - I definitely plan on coming up with an easier long term solution.

As for tonight, I haven't lit a fire and will be letting the oil furnace handle the cold temps. Ended up having to work 16hrs today so it can wait.

 

[spitfire557]

Update:

Ended up picking up a poly brush and sweeping that horizontal run so I could fire the stove up. One pass of the brush and all was well. Also rigged up some 2" PVC to my shop vac along with a 90* elbow to get into the cleanout portion of that bend. That setup worked perfectly.

Only question I have is why is the inside of the stainless liner red? I'm assuming oxidation but I've been wrong plenty of times in the past.