Most know that I've posted before about our chimney not needing cleaning. We put up the new chimney at the same time we installed the Woodstock Fireview. I had purchased enough to go 15' but when we put it up we also did some checking on the draft. We could not detect any difference between 10' and 15'. Dollars being a bit tight, I simply told my wife that we'd return the unused sections and we stopped at 10'. No, I do not recommend this to anyone else and I actually held on to the extra pipe to make sure it would work. We did clean the chimney after 2 full winters of heating to get just about a cup of soot and fly ash. No black stuff at all. It had not been cleaned since except that maybe a month or so ago my wife removed the bottom cap and got perhaps a quart of soot, fly ash and just a little bit of some black flecks. Certainly nothing to be concerned with. She said the chimney was fine and put the cap back on. Not to go away from that a bit, this past year has been a rough one for me physically. Especially since a year ago in October when I fell backwards out of a trailer and landed squarely on that already bad back. I was able to cut some wood last winter with my wife's help but nowhere near what we normally cut. We usually split in March or April and stack right after that. Not so this year. In fact, I was not able to split until sometime in May and most of that wood is still in a heap. I've stacked maybe close to 2 cord. So, come October, it is time to put this year's wood in the barn and fill the rack on the porch. Before I got done, I got lazy. I was trying to lessen my work load and thought about that wood that is in a heap. As I have stacked some off an on, I could not help but notice just how light the wood was. After all, much of it is white ash and it has been dead for many, many moons. Our trees began dieing in 2002-2003. So, according to many folks, you can cut dead wood and burn it right away. And of course, anyone knows you can cut white ash and burn it right away because it is so dry. Okay, it is ash and it is dead; should be good to go. Right? First fire I lit in the stove we got black glass and the wood didn't burn worth a hoot. This was the first time we had black glass since our original burn-in fires on the Fireview. Well, maybe the next one would be better. Wrong! In total we tried 3 fires and got the exact same results each time. So, I have to load that wood back up and take it back to be stacked as normal. More work when I had planned on less. After returning that wood to its proper place, I then moved the trailer to that old stack that many have seen in some of my posts. The wood that was cut in the winter 2008-2009 then split and stacked in April 2009. Result? The wood burned beautifully and it also cleaned the glass for us. No more black. So, once again, we'll leave that short drying time to others. We had decided to put an addition onto our chimney this year and ordered a 3' section. Pallet Pete was gracious enough to come over and put it up for us. They don't want me on ladders or roofs any more because of vertigo spells. Okay.... Problem! Wrong pipe. But, Pete said, "Boy, your chimney really needs cleaning!" Well, with Pete still on the roof, it did not take me long to get the brush and poles. I then removed the bottom cap and held a 5 gallon bucket while Pete ran the brush down the pipe. Here is the result. I would not call that too bad after 4 years of burning. But basically this is the first time we've got any black from this chimney. I say this is the result of burning that wood which we cut last winter. Remember that my wife had got about a quart of fly ash and soot from the chimney already this year when she did her annual or semi-annual chimney check. This is why I consider all this black crap from that wood which is not back in its proper place. What do you think?
Dennis, that is a clean chimney. Getting that little after 4 years of burning is incredible. It shows the value of dry wood. You are probably right about the one year old wood causing the black stuff, considering it had never happened before to you. Keep burning that quality wood of yours. The best example of proper seasoning is the proof that's in that five gallon bucket.
The beauty of 3+ year seasoned wood ! For us with the space to get 3+ years ahead, a good thing. Identifies a problem : How to help those who can't due to space limitations ? Wood sellers ever gonna hold onto their wood stacked for 3 years ? Better designed stove to burn wet wood ? Read that Seattle area has a burn ban on now, due to stagnate air. Some of the bad air was from wood stoves & burning wet wood. Air warning ink Quote from last Jan, during similar conditions: AP "Puget Sound Clean Air Agency inspectors drive around looking for smoke coming out of chimneys, Kline said. People who want to complain about their neighbors’ smoke can report them on the agency’s website."
To add to this it looked awful inside but wound up beings almost all fluff soot! There was no baked on creosote in the chimney, it was still clean for the most part. A bit deceiving.
I'm thinking Pete brought over some black soot from AC's place just to set you up! It looks fine to me Sav.
Crap, you guys caught me. I haven't seen Dennis & Judy for a while, so I sent a souvenier with Pete. A C
We're going to try to fix that soon. We have some pines to cut on the neighbor's place. Sending the wood to wishlist. I'll be calling him soon to see if he is ready to cut. But my best hope is that I too can cut.
You can't complain when that is what your chimney looks like after that many years. I ran a brush through mine this fall just because I was already up there cleaning gutters and got maybe one hand full of fluffy soot after 1.5 years of burning so I was pretty happy. Long story short, I love dry wood! I smile every time I place another split in the stove.
