What should the inside of my masonary chimney look like?

[albertj03]

I'm a wood burning newbie going into my second year with my woodstove. I was wondering what it should look like when I look up my chimney with a mirror and flash light through the cleanout door at the bottom? It's a masonary chimney with a clay flue starting from the basement of my two story colonial. I had it cleaned by a certified chimney sweep a couple months ago and he said it looked really good in there with minimal creosote (I burned about 1.5 - 2 cords last winter). I'm burning the same types of wood seasoned for about the same length or time as last year although I had some poplar last year and probably have a little more red oak this year.

So far I've probably burned 3 or 4 days and I looked up the chimney with a mirror and flash light today and it looked like there was a very thin coat of very fine light grey ash inside there. Is this what it should look like? Maybe I can take a picture once I get the battery charged for my better flash light tomorrow.

My stove is a CFM 24000. I put a magnetic thermometer on the stove pipe a few inches above where it goes into the stove and it usually reads between 350 - 450 with the air set to 1/4 to 1/2 way open - is this too low? I didn't have the thermometer last year but it feels like it's burning the same and putting off the same heat into the house. The firebox of this stove is small and I can usually put 2 small - medium sized splits in there or a medium split with some small stuff. Sometimes I'll just put one large split in. I've been assuming that the lower temps are due to the smaller amount of wood in the firebox. Does this seem right?

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[BrotherBart]

Fine grey ash sounds like you are burning just fine. As to how you load it always load two splits. Burns better. One big chunk tends to smolder. Two creates an air channel between them and a better burn. For small stoves two on top of the coals and a piece across the top of the two is great.

Move that thermometer up to around 18" to 24" from the flue collar of the stove and keep it at 250 or over and you will be fine.

 

[albertj03]

Thanks for the help. I'll move the thermometer up to make sure my stove pipe is 250 or over. I'll probably buy another one to put on top of the stove. Or maybe this is a good excuse to by a digital laser thermometer gun.

 

[firefighterjake]

Light gray ash = good.

Black, popcorn or potato-chip looking creosote = bad.

Shiny black glaze = very bad.

Glazed donut = very good . . . for me at least.

As BB mentioned, you may want to reload 2-3 splits or rounds at a time and most folks recommend placing flue thermometers to 18 inches above the flue collar. Keep up the good burning.