Moved in March of 16. Hired it swept that summer so I knew what I was dealing with as I’m a new burner. Boy does a guy learn a lot in a year. From this and that other forum, I knew to get ahead on wood and so had begun to css in 14. Still some of my wood wasn’t quite where I needed it to be. The other thing I changed about the setup that i THINK cause some issues was adding a screen to the cap. The guy I bought the place from had burned with this setup since 89ish and it didn’t have a screen. I thought it should to keep birds and such out, but some of you may remember my problem getting draft and fires started beginning in December. Christmas night I smoked the house something horrible and removed the completely clogged screen the next day. All went well after that. Today I climbed up to do the dirty deed and removed the cap, finding it and the top few inches fairly heavy with creosote. Just from the cap alone was over 2 cups. That was what fell as I removed the cap and what I cleaned off of it. After sweeping, I had about 3/4 of an ice cream bucket of creosote. Nothing was real tar like. It and off easy but I found my sweep was too large. I cut the nylon bristles off, but it was still too tight in my opinion. Next year will be better! Weather here in central Nebraska has been very wet the last couple weeks. Today and tomorrow are 70, but Turning to upper 40’s and lower 50s for highs with night time temps upper 30s. I think I’ll have a first fire Monday evening. My wife is ready for one anyways. Picture of my bucket of flamables Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Wasn’t even that dirty as, unfortunately, my chimney is almost all exterior as it’s a basement install with the stovepipe going outside undergrade into a sort of window well with a T in it. So pull the plug,, set a box under it, and scrub from the top down. Getting up on the roof is fairly easy too. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
No doubt many times you may get by with just cleaning that top foot or so of the chimney as that is probably where most of the black crap came from.
OK how many gallon is that bucket? and are you on three year plan? once I had dry wood I measure in cups not buckets!
I think the bucket was a standard 1.03gal pail and I’m not quite to the three year plan but hope by the end of this year to be. Hoping to get to cups as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I did mine today as well. I counted about 16 oz of light grey fluff. Some creosote chips could be heard falling when the brush reached the top but all in all a good report.
I will go back to brushing the flue twice a year because last week’s cleaning (first time going a whole year) got about 3 quarts of stuff looking much like your picture. Our chimney is not an engineered system like the insulated class-A flues which seem to do an amazing job against buildup when burning dry wood properly in an EPA stove.
Not sure why I’m still struggling as even though I was behind on wood, I found some 20+ year old under roof stuff for sale and it’s showing 10-11% in my mm. Swept again today as it’s about 40f out. Not a big deal but I’ve been burning hot (stt around 650f usually and still lots of creosote. Maybe it’s the nature of the beast with my setup. Out top of stove about 40”, 90 back thru wall, “T” and then up, outside double wall, 21’. Seems like it drafts good so maybe I just need to sweep once during season ? From top down prior to cleaning Top down post sweep Bottom up post sweep Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Looks like you are not getting a complete burn... Even if the volatile gasses given off by your wood are super heated (as evidenced by your high STT),without ENOUGH oxygen, they won’t ALL burn. As they travel up the chimney and cool, they’ll condense.. it certainly is difficult to get the mix exactly right,, You could run your stove wide open and never get any creosote on the cap.. but then you’d be wasting heat and wood. I think that the lack of shiny black creosote inside the chimney shows that you’re burning pretty dry wood and that you’re doing it pretty efficiently. A little easy-off oven cleaner on that cap and you’ll be back in business... Curious, what’s the lateral distance between the top of your chimney and the main part of the house?
Not quite the required distance. . But very close to 10’. It’s been used this way since at least 97 and probably closer to 89. Doesn’t make it right. I don’t like the way he did it but not sure how I’d do it any different. Guess I could build giant standoffs and hold the pipe way away from the house. We never get smoke in the nearest window, but I do have two co detectors and one right near that window. Any suggestions to better it? Thank you for the feedback. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well, as they say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Since we’re spending your money, I’d extend the second floor out to meet the wall that the pipe is mounted on and then run the pipe to the roof of the second floor. If we were spending my money, I’d leave it as is and be cognizant of any specific conditions such as winds, temperature inversions, or other conditions that affect the performance of the chimney. Lots of stuff from the old days still works just fine. No need to change it.
Thanks for the follow up! I'm absolutely no expert. My first couple years I got a just f few tablespoons of ash when swept, but then again I was meticulous about dry wood and I could easily check the stack for smoke and adjust the air as needed. This year will be very interesting. Our summer/fall was soaking wet and I know my wood far from perfectly dry. As for you, I would work on trying to adjust the air to minimize smoke out the stack, if possible.
6” ID which matches the stove pipe. Single wall to the wall thimble and then the T and pipe up the side of the house is double wall 6” ID Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
