what happened here?...and how do I clean it up?

[RAY_PA]

Newly constructed cabin this fall-center of house block chimney with 8" terracotta liner-SS chimney cap-old but good condition smoke dragon.
We have been burning almost consistant (24/7) for 1 1/2 months. Everything has been going fine. This past Sunday, the only change in weather was some heavy winds, no rain or snow. Tended the fire Sunday night, and went back Monday morning to find this mess....what seems like 'liquid creosote' running out the clean out door and all over the floor. I have been around wood fires for 35 years and never seen this. No rain for over 7 days.

 

[Shari]

Okay, take this with a LARGE grain of salt as I have been outside clearing snow from our driveway for 2-1/2 hours and now am sitting here in front of a very warm fire and have a Bailey's Irish Cream (before noon???) in my coffee cup sans coffee. Looks like the black birds sat on your chimney for warmth and they melted! Okay, now that I got that out of my system, is your chimeny cap plugged up??? Did an overly wet log or two get mixed up in your woodpile? As for clean up, try something from the Rutland product line. I have used the soot & stone cleaner and that worked wonders on our lannon stone. --- Okay, back to my fire and my Bailey's......

Shari

 

[RAY_PA]

hehehe, melted black birds, didnt smell like burned chicken..
We did burn a few wet peices when we first fired this thing up, a month or so ago, then we burned a standing dead ash tree, that lasted for a couple weeks, but our hunting season was the last week and we had nice seasoned white oak for the week and weekend, I assume some of the ash got tosssed in with the white oak, but not alot.
that shot of the liner in the first post was sticking the camera in the clean out door..looking up swhere the stove pipe enters tha chimney. Here is a shot from the stove pipe hole to the top.....

 

[Adabiviak]

...seems like creosote would ignite before melting like that (if it has a liquid state). Is there some sealant or other compound used in the chimney construction that 'leached' out given the sustained temperatures? That's a lot of juice there.

 

[karri0n]

What's the consistency? Is it tacky like tar, or watery?

 

[Shari]

"Standing dead" doesn't mean the wood is dry, one would think so but it is not always true. I've got applewood cut and stacked from a 'dead' tree that had been down for over 2 yrs. but just split and stacked a month ago and it's still too wet to burn. Me thinks it's time for a chimney cleanout and purchase of a moisture meter if you don't have one yet (Harbor Freight, less than $20). We don't burn anything unless it tests out at 20% moisture or less - and then the black birds don't melt down our chimney.

Shari (& Bailey's! )

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Creosote must be hygroscopic. It sucks up moisture from the air. Eventually it dissolves in it. That or there was some overnight rain/dew/condensation that you didn't know about. Frost melting off the cap or something maybe?

Does anyone have a reason to climb on your roof and pee down your chimney?

I could speculate all day

 

[RPK1]

Not sure how to clean it up. I am pretty sure that creosote mess is the result of not having a hot enough fire to keep the chimney stack temperature high. The flue gases always cool down at the top of the chimney. If they cool down too much the result is condensation from warm most wood smoke air meeting cold air. If that happens in the chimney the creosote will drip down the liner. That is why this forum preaches a properly sized insulated flue and a good hot fire with dry wood. Got to get those flue gases up and out of the chimney as quick and hot as possible.

I would suggest a good cleaning and then make sure you have a hot fire with dry wood. It shouldn't happen again.

RPK1

 

[RAY_PA]

its 'tacky like tar' -I would say
I have a moisture meter, and used it on the white oak, after I freaked out about them burning that ash. 8-10 different guys tend the fire over the course of the 2 week period. The white oak was 18% and the ash was 29%.
I have been speculating all day, my self, so decided to run up and get some pics and post them here. IMO, thats a hell of a mess to have happened overnight, in 12 hours or less.
I dont know, just thoguth someone here might have a good idea. We'll try to clean it up tonight and fire the beast back up and see what happens.

 

[Shari]

Your Ash is too wet - let it season till next year.

Shari

 

[Wet1]

its 'tacky like tar' -I would say
I have a moisture meter, and used it on the white oak, after I freaked out about them burning that ash. 8-10 different guys tend the fire over the course of the 2 week period. The white oak was 18% and the ash was 29%.
I have been speculating all day, my self, so decided to run up and get some pics and post them here. IMO, thats a hell of a mess to have happened overnight, in 12 hours or less.
I dont know, just though someone here might have a good idea. We'll try to clean it up tonight and fire the beast back up and see what happens.

Did you resplit and take the readings, or just check the exterior of the existing splits? You probably already know this, but you need to resplit the wood to get an accurate reading.

29% is a little wet, but it should be okay to burn if mixed with some good dry white oak. If possible, I'd let it sit for a while before using it.


BTW, it looks to me like someone dumped water down your flue. Is it possible there was a mild chimney fire and someone took care of it by dumping water down the flue???

 

[beau5278]

My Dad always said "ash wet or ash dry,a king will warm his slippers by",yea,I know really corny,that said,I've cut live white ash trees in the morning and burned them later that day and I've never had anything like that,ash wood is more of a mess in the stove than in the chimney.

 

[RAY_PA]

[quote author="Wet1"


BTW, it looks to me like someone dumped water down your flue. Is it possible there was a mild chimney fire and someone took care of it by dumping water down the flue???[/quote]

That is exactly what my dad said.....the roof of the cabin is a steep metal roof, I cant imagine any of the guys trying to get up there, and I would have thought someone would have mentioned that if they did, but I guess its not out of the question.
This happened in the night time on Sunday, Monday morning, when dad found the mess, the fire was still going......when I took the pics today, there seemed to be pleanty of draft in the chimney (fire is out now)

 

[LLigetfa]

My Dad always said...

Sayings, (corny or otherwise) regardless of how many say it and how often they are repeated, don't make them true. If you have moisture in the wood going up the flue (and go up the flue it must), and if the temperature of the flue walls and the smoke are conducive to condensation, that is exactly what you will get. There are two easy answers here. Reduce the moisture and/or increase the flue temperature.

 

[Yamaha_gurl]

Serious question, do you have kids that could have stuck something in the ash door?

 

[karri0n]

maybe santa needs a diaper. px of firebox with creosote dump in it sez ,avalanche, or most of the creo in chimney avalanched down ... somehow

I wonder how many times He's tried to go down the chimney, only to find out that some installer did a stub liner and ends up getting stuck in a GD woodstove?

 

[RAY_PA]

LMAO, stuck in the stub liner.
there were kids at camp during the last week, but nothing was stuck in the ash door.
At this point, I'll chalk it up to damp wood and dampering the fire down too much, but I cant imagine how that big of a mess would have happend over night....I could see if it was a little bit on the floor directly under the ash door, but it ran across the floor 8 feet or more.

 

[pen]

If I may take a guess, I think that you had a special set of envionrmental conditions in conjunction with cool burning, a lot of creosote in the chimney and poor wood that resulted in condensation forming in you chimney. This condensation being water eventually built up and ran down over the creosote to the bottom, leaving the tar like substance you are finding everywhere.

I have a friend with a stove that simply gets this circumstance every now and again even burning dry wood. He doesn't have a cleanout door so he literally needs to remove the stove pipe and dip the creosote water out with a cup. I believe his is caused by a chimney that is too large (8 x 12 or something similar) and certain evironmental conditions where the chimney cools, water condenses, smoke and creosote collect in the water and run down.

But of course this is simply my hypothesis, I could be wrong.

pen

 

[LLigetfa]

...the water resulted from interchimneal atmospheric variations...

or ectoplasm... call the Ghost Busters.

 

[thechimneysweep]

What you have there is plain old glaze creosote, still in its liquified state. And, based upon your statements, it has been forming since your first fire.

We did burn a few wet peices when we first fired this thing up, a month or so ago

then we burned a (29% moisture content) standing dead ash tree, that lasted for a couple weeks

I assume some of the ash got tosssed in with the white oak

Since you just started burning a month ago, it sounds like a huge percentage of your fires have had wet wood in them.

All of the fires described above would easily cause the thin liquid condensate you found at the bottom of the flue. Add in the fact that most "Old Smoke Dragons" can be totally shut down, smoldering the fire, and you have a tried-and-true formula for liquid glaze formation: Wet Wood + Smoldering Fire = Liquid Glaze.

I'm betting the glaze has been flowing down the inside of your chimney right along, and just finally reached the bottom.

What to do: Set the Ash aside until it is at 20% moisture content. Verify that your oak is at 20-25% MC. Get ahold of some Anti Creo-Sote (ACS) by Saver Systems or Third Stage Remover (TSR) by Rutland and add a squirt to each load of DRY wood, being careful not to turn the draft control down so far it extinguishes the flames. You want to maintain flue temps of 300 degrees. Check the flue periodically, and sweep it out as soon as the glaze turns crunchy. Clean up the goo at the bottom with Rutland Brick & Stone Cleaner. Then, seal up that cleanout door. If creosote can gooze out, air can flow in, and will adversely affect your chimney draft, compounding your glaze problems.

 

[fossil]

I don't know what happened to cause that, but it's a mess. Of course creosote deposits can become liquid enough to flow down the internal surfaces of a flue...that's the very reason that connector pipe and chimney pipe are always installed with the male ends pointing down into the next section beneath...so that junk is contained in the pipe as it wanders back down toward the stove, rather than leaking out onto the outside of the pipe at every non-airtight joint. As far as getting it cleaned up, I think I'd just go after it with a ton of paper towels and some paint thinner (mineral spirits), disposable gloves, and lots of ventilation. I don't think you'll ever get the stains out completely, but you'll at least get it cleaned up. Rick

EDIT: I'm talking about clean-up outside the cleanout door...not addressing the inside of the flue. I also really like Tom's observation about sealing that cleanout door.

 

[karri0n]

Wow, you got a reply from Tom, AND he said "gooze"! Well played.

I was going to mention that from the pic, it did look like you have quite a bit of dangerous glazed creosote on there.

 

[thechimneysweep]

gooze (v) A highly technical combination of two words, goo and ooze, used by cutting-edge hearth product professionals to describe the flow of liquid creosote.

-Tomster's Unabridged-

 

[fossil]

It's an onomonopoetic neologism. It may just have jumped right to number one on my favorite word list. Rick

 

[bvpbill]

It’s an onomonopoetic neologism.Very good.


Very good. That had me googling.
This site is so educational at many levels.
Thanks fossil.

Bill