Soot eater arrived. Works great, even happier with the liner!

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fishingpol

Minister of Fire
Jul 13, 2010
2,049
Merrimack Valley, MA
The Sooteater arrived yesterday and I was home from work a little early which was rare. I went up on my roof and set it to work. I re-lined my chimney last fall with a flex liner and wrapped 1/2" insulation blanket. The top 18" or so was black flakey creosote, very thin and it came off easily. I had probably less that a cup between the cap and to 18". Everything else below was dry, brown, powdery soot. I ran the sooteater all the way to the tee in about 20 minutes. In the tee and cleanout I had about a 1/2 gallon of soot. The liner looked nice inside when finished. Shop vac'd everything out and it was ready to go again.

There have been a few recent posts here about folks looking to get one of these and I feel they are worth it. I am really impressed with the liner and insulation. Just stand upwind when cleaning as a fair amount of light soot will be carried up the chimney as you clean. The instructions show how to clean bottom up.
 
I also used this last summer for the first time. My house is a cape with a very steep high roof so I decided to try cleaning from the basement clean out. I ordered 2 sets and ran over 30 feet up the chimney.You have to be careful as you increase the length as the flex rods can become twisted. Anyway my wife ran the drill and I guided the rods up and it worked great. No more roof climbing for me. I got about the same amount of soot and creosote as when I ran a steel brush up and down from the top - maybe about 1 gallon. I clean once a year.
 
I use mine from the bottom up due to a steep roof and fear of heights. I have a slip connector in the stove pipe and found that a non-tox antifreeze bottle with the bottom cut off slips perfectly on the "ceiling box". A bit of masking tape holds it in place and the soot eater rods pass through the spout. My wife holds the HEPA vac near the spout and we finish in about a half hour from start to next fire.
 
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