Soot eater and How much soot is too much?

[kingston73]

I've only had my wood stove for 2 seasons now, the first year I burned "seasoned" wood that I bought, I don't have a moisture meter but it rang hollow and sounded and looked dry and seasoned. I paid for the chimney service that installed my setup to come clean it after that first season so they could look at things and see if it all seemed to be working. They said it all looked very good and there didn't seem to be any issues at all.

Last season I know I was burning wood not fully seasoned, a lot of it I split myself in may, june, and july. I just purchased and used a soot eater for the first time today and there was a LOT of stuff, it about 1/2 filled a plastic grocery bag. Mainly black flaky stuff with black powder mixed in. I didn't think to take a picture until after I threw it out and the trash has just been collected.

So my main question is: does this seem about normal or is this pretty bad? Also, I'm wondering if I need to insulate all or at least part of my liner. I have about 3 ft of double wall inside connected with a 90 to the thimble, and then it goes out into an external brick chimney with a 6 inch ss duravent liner in it. At the top of the brick it has a 36 inch ss duravent single wall at the top with a cap. When they first installed it the guys told me it most likely wouldn't need to be insulated as its a short section (approx 12ft)

My wood this year is all at least a year old, some is nearly 2 years old. Mainly a mix of maple, pine, locust, and a little cherry.

 

[begreen]

Sounds like a fair amount, but that can be from the marginal quality of the wood burned. Insulating the liner could help. For now, add a cleaning in mid-season until you can get a couple years ahead on the wood supply. Once the wood is fully seasoned I think you will notice a decrease in accumulated creosote.

 

[joescho]

What you burn (seasoned/wet) may cause you to get more/less build up but if it concerns you take a look up or down the chimney half way through the season just make sure everything is ok but the past few years I'm admittedly burning not so ideal wood, but every year my chimney guy comes and it takes a little over 30 minutes to brush clean and get everything that falls down and always remarks how easy mine is to clean and how clean it is after he's done. I have a 6 inch SS liner in my wood burner.

From what my chimney guy tells me my main concern is that last foot or so before the top on the liner. On both my pellet stove and my wood burner it tends to get gummy and build up the top of the chimner/liner opening by the end of the year because the vapors cool off and tend to stick up at the top. More so on the wood burner, but my pellet liner is only 4 inches.

But if you're concerned with how much you get at the end of the year you can wait for a sunny day where your roof is dry ans go up for a peek in January or February.

 

[BrotherBart]

Did you get a look down that chimney after the other guy cleaned it?

 

[Woody Stover]

Is the masonry chimney on an outside wall? I've got a 17' insulated liner in an external masonry chimney and I got maybe a 1.5 qt. saucepan's worth, most of it at the top of the liner. I burned fairly dry wood in a cat stove.

Agreed, do a mid-season check and brushing for a while to get a better idea how it goes with the drier wood.

 

[Nick Mystic]

Your description of your chimney set up was a bit confusing to me. Are you saying you have a brick chimney that is on the outside of your house and that you have a SS flex liner inside it and then you have a 36" section of single wall pipe sticking out the top of the brick chimney? If that's your set up then I can see why you would have a problem with creosote building up in that top most section. I would think you would want to at least use some double or triple wall pipe for that top most section to keep the gasses/smoke from hitting such a cold pipe on their way out of your flue.

 

[kingston73]

Your description of your chimney set up was a bit confusing to me. Are you saying you have a brick chimney that is on the outside of your house and that you have a SS flex liner inside it and then you have a 36" section of single wall pipe sticking out the top of the brick chimney? If that's your set up then I can see why you would have a problem with creosote building up in that top most section. I would think you would want to at least use some double or triple wall pipe for that top most section to keep the gasses/smoke from hitting such a cold pipe on their way out of your flue.

You have it exactly right. For whatever reason the original builder didn't make the masonry chimney to code and it is too short so the liner installer added the 36 inch ss section. To add a double wall section is it just a matter of unscrewing the current section and fastening a double wall piece?

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah I missed the part about that single wall piece.

 

[PapaDave]

Not sure how that transition would be accomplished, but I agree that's probably where a good amount of buildup occurs.
I get the most buildup in the top foot or so of my Class A setup.

 

[Nick Mystic]

My massive brick chimney is centrally located in my house and serves as a great thermal mass letting off stored heat from my stove. However, the top four feet of chimney sticking out top of my roof is just shedding heat to the outdoors. So, when I installed my SS liner I ran about five feet of insulation down my chimney to help my liner stay hot all the way up. When I recently cleaned my flue it looked as though the insulation did its job because the top of my liner was as clean as the section lower down in the part of my chimney that is inside the house. So, if you switch out that single wall to double or triple wall you might want to pop your rain cap and shove some insulation down between your SS liner and your clay liner. Every bit helps.

 

[Cornelis]

My stove pipe goes in to the chimney with a liner so there is a T where the stove pipe meets the liner. I was wondering how deep the T should be going down. Why I am asking because the bottom of the T was full of shoot and then some. Hope this make sense.

 

[Nick Mystic]

The bottom section of my T connector extends about two and half inches below the horizontal pipe that connects to the stove. I don't know if the draft of the chimney would be affected if you extended that bottom section or not. On the Woodstock Classic stove on the lower level of our house the clay tile flue extends about 16" below the thimble opening in the chimney for the stove pipe and that stove drafts fine right into an 8"x11" clay tile flue going straight up around 23'. On my new Jotul F600 woodstove with the factory T connector I can lift the top off the stove with two bolts to look directly into the T connector. If you have easy access to your T connection you might want to inspect the T from time to time to make sure creosote and soot is not breaking free from you liner and piling up in the bottom of the T. While you have it open it's easy to reach in and scoop out any accumulation. When I did my chimney cleaning that's how I removed my soot when I finished with the Sooteater. I also used my shop vac to clean any remnants and to tidy up the top shelf of the baffle.

 

[Cornelis]

The bottom section of my T connector extends about two and half inches below the horizontal pipe that connects to the stove. I don't know if the draft of the chimney would be affected if you extended that bottom section or not. On the Woodstock Classic stove on the lower level of our house the clay tile flue extends about 16" below the thimble opening in the chimney for the stove pipe and that stove drafts fine right into an 8"x11" clay tile flue going straight up around 23'. On my new Jotul F600 woodstove with the factory T connector I can lift the top off the stove with two bolts to look directly into the T connector. If you have easy access to your T connection you might want to inspect the T from time to time to make sure creosote and soot is not breaking free from you liner and piling up in the bottom of the T. While you have it open it's easy to reach in and scoop out any accumulation. When I did my chimney cleaning that's how I removed my soot when I finished with the Sooteater. I also used my shop vac to clean any remnants and to tidy up the top shelf of the baffle.

That is what I did but if you look true the thimble you could see the pile of soot. I think that was way to much. That is why I was asking how deep the T would be

 

[Nick Mystic]

When I cleaned my ss flue liner, which is 15' tall, I had only burned between the end of February 2013 and May. I was going to remove the bottom T cover to remove the soot/creosote that fell to the bottom of the T connector, but when I removed the three sheet metal screws that hold it on the cap wouldn't budge. I have limited space to reach the bottom cap due to my stove sitting directly in front of my fireplace opening with only five inches of space on either side. So, instead of trying to wrestle the cap off I just cleaned up the pile of soot through the stove opening, which is easy to access on my Jotul F600 by removing two bolts and lifting off a plate on the top of the stove. The soot after that short burning period did not even reach the horizontal pipe leading to the stove. In other words, there was less than two and a half inches of soot in the six inch diameter liner. If you are getting enough creosote in the bottom of your T so that it rises clear up to cover some of the horizontal pipe leading to your stove after a cleaning I don't know that you have a problem, assuming you remove it all after your sweep. However, as I mentioned earlier, creosote will break loose and fall down your liner on its own just in the course of burning, contraction and expansion of your liner due to heating and cooling, etc. If you let that accumulation get to the point that it fills your bottom section of your T and begins to restrict your smoke from exiting your stove, then you have a problem. You would likely notice a reduced draft to your stove if this started occurring. Things like smoke puffing into your room when you open the door to your stove to add wood.

 

[Cornelis]

I did clean it all out with the wet vac and there was 12 cups of soot.

 

[Beer Belly]

Not meaning to hijack......my brick chimney (outside wall), is lined with about 14 feet of flex liner, I get more soot than expected when I clean.....should I be looking at replacing the liner with an insulated liner ????.....the 14 feet is an estimate, but probably pretty close. My wood supply is getting better, but could an insulated liner also help ??

 

[begreen]

Is this an exterior chimney? Are you able to get a good secondary burn with dry wood.

 

[Beer Belly]

Mine is an exterior Chimney....decent secondary....not great

 

[begreen]

By all means insulate that liner. It should help. If the chimney could be extended a couple feet that may also show a nice improvement.

Do you have a block off plate installed as well?

 

[Beer Belly]

By all means insulate that liner. It should help. If the chimney could be extended a couple feet that may also show a nice improvement.

Do you have a block off plate installed as well?

Yes, we have a Block Off Plate....the Liner is full length, to go any further probably wouldn't look right.....Thanks

 

[begreen]

You'll have to decide what is more important, function or form?

 

[begreen]

I just did my first chimney cleaning with the sooteater. It was pretty easy and less work than weedeating. The whole process including changing the vacuum cleaner bag took less than an hour. The only small hassle was sometime getting the rod release pins to actually release. But no big deal there. The Makita was loafing and had no issues. I trapped the plastic sheet by using the trivet top lid to hold it, then sliced a 8" slit in it for the rods. This worked well, no mess or soot in the house. I ran it up and down the pipe several times for each length of rod. All totaled I got a bit less than a cup of sote so I probably didn't need to do it, but now I have peace of mind for the season and all this without going up on the roof! We are now ready to burn.