Well, I had what I hope was the last fire of this season. It was 26 this morning. I have oil to take the chill off. I hate to quit fire season, but I am SO looking forward to warm weather. Gonna clean my flue later today, and I put an old curtain over the top of the flue to keep out the birds or whatever. Never have a problem so far, but thats just how I do it I guess. Does everyone shop vac out all the ashes for the summer, or let them be? I left them in last year and had no problem with rust or what not.
Spring Has Sprung
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Still burning here on and off. It was 25 this morning but warming up into the 60’s today then cooling back down Tuesday. I will probably clean out the fire box next month but hold off sweeping the chimney til fall just in case bees deside to build a nest up there.
The next two mornings our lows are forecast at 22 & 25 and the third morning at 36 so we'll have fires but Friday the 26 will be our last day burning. Anything after that the furnace will get used if needed.
I turned my boiler off yesterday. The house was 64 last I looked. Maybe I’ll kick it on in the morning for a bit if it gets cool.
I like to clean mine all out pretty good. I can get humidity inside my stove sometimes in the summer. Maybe its a little sideways rain that gets past the cap, but it seems like less to hold the moisture if it’s all dry.
are you building on firebrick? If so, it won’t matter. If on cast iron, build on ash or sand.
Me too. I did not vac out the stove last year, but i probably will this year. It does get humid here in NJ near the coast and rivers. And wind blown rain does get past my chimney cap and can drip down to the stove pipe.
I probably overemphasized the humidity thing, but sometimes I have water on the inside of my glass. I don’t really know if it’s humidity or sideways rain. It clears up
If the door is left open for a while.
If the door is left open for a while.
Best to clean out ashes, touch up interior with black paint, kills smells if humidity bring them out, the stove looks better and a paint coat for protection never is a bad thing. When I did cleanings in the past, we touched up interior and exterior unless customer was against it, most appreciated us wanting to make it look new. I still touch up my own stove. It looks better.
This is not relevant for the OP, but for others that may read this in the future: I would not add paint on the interior if it is a cat stove. (It'll burn off and go thru the cat, which is not recommended.) Indeed.my cat stove was unpainted inside (I believe).
Someone on here mentioned using one of those moisture absorber thingies --DampRid is one brand-- that you can use in cars that are not used just to deal with the humidity. I put one in the Jotul last year and it seemed to work well.
I feel like it can't hurt anything, but you do have to check it if is really absorbing a lot--we had one in another place in the house that overflowed--and that was a right mess...
For me it is clean chimney, clean firebox (ashes out) have a look around, and a small fire to start in the Fall.
This Spring, it was the usual--I thought I had a head start on wood for next year, because I cut and split a couple of large deadfall Ash--and then we burned a bunch of it to keep warm in the morning, in between the weird 'Fool's Spring' days...
I feel like it can't hurt anything, but you do have to check it if is really absorbing a lot--we had one in another place in the house that overflowed--and that was a right mess...
For me it is clean chimney, clean firebox (ashes out) have a look around, and a small fire to start in the Fall.
This Spring, it was the usual--I thought I had a head start on wood for next year, because I cut and split a couple of large deadfall Ash--and then we burned a bunch of it to keep warm in the morning, in between the weird 'Fool's Spring' days...
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
For the vacuuming crowd. Any filter recommendations to keep my house from turning into an ash storm?
I have a ridgid shopvac that I used just yesterday. Normally I don't use a vacuum, but I wanted to clean the creosote from behind the brick, so I shoveled all the ash out, vacuumed the stove, and then took the bricks out (scraped the creosote and shoveled that out).
With OEM bag and filter nothing comes out the back.
With OEM bag and filter nothing comes out the back.
OOF! ...."creosote from behind the brick"...is that common? It hadn't occurred to me to look for
anything like that...but I will now!!
I used to have the local chimney guys come and
clean our chimney and I watched how they did it; until I realized that they never even opened the fire box.
I 'thought' we were paying for them to also check the bricks, seals and the flue.
**that being said, since they didn't 'inspect' anything, I decided to just do it all myself and
save $245. 🤷♀️
With my cat stove I get creosote in the box (that is then cleaned up by the cat before it reaches the flue).when I burn low and slow.
At the end of the season I do one hot fire to crisp all that up and then I brush the firebox. As the bricks do not go all the way up, brushing above that some of the creosote falls down in the small gap between the bricks and the side wall. I thought it best to not leave (corrosive) creosote there all summer.
If you don't have a cat stove and you operate it normally then that should not be an issue.
At the end of the season I do one hot fire to crisp all that up and then I brush the firebox. As the bricks do not go all the way up, brushing above that some of the creosote falls down in the small gap between the bricks and the side wall. I thought it best to not leave (corrosive) creosote there all summer.
If you don't have a cat stove and you operate it normally then that should not be an issue.
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