Im looking for some input from you guys. When I bought my house, the old owner left the chimney brush in the shed. Its a rectangular head for an 8ish inch rectangular flu, and looks like it has fiberglass rods. My chimney is external to the house, and the through wall thimbles are about 12" long, and then there is a 90 degree turn up. There are two flu's in the chimney. The basement is below grade, so no clean out. The first floor has a clean out, but when they built the wrap around porch, it ended becoming unable to be opened. I need to look into making that accessible, I cant imagine that they have cleaned it out in the past several years! Id like to be able to do a bottom up sweep in the winter, and not have to deal with snow on the roof. Will the brush that I have work for this, or do I need to buy something like a sooteater to do that? Id rather ask first than try it and break a rod...or worse, get it stuck!
If you don't have a ceramic thimble extending into the masonry chimney you could be okay. The fiberglass rods will make the bend but they put upward pressure on the opening which could damage that thimble. Sooteater would be a safer option.
Thanks for your input, that was I was kind of thinking. The thimble appears to possibly be concrete. Definitely not ceramic, but I think I will err on the side of caution and buy the soot eater.
I probably missed a thread on what you are installing, but are you dropping a liner down the existing flue? Do you think you will need to do a mid-season cleaning, or is it a peace of mind thing?
Crap, I didnt realize the soot eater would only handle a round flu. I intend to drop a liner down, but that's not in the cards this year. The new absolute steel ate that budget As for needing to brush it, I don't know. After this year I will be on the three year plan, but this winter will have a little marginal wood I think.
Have you taken a look down the flue with a cell phone pic to see what it looks like? I'm curious what you are up against. Nice thing with a liner is the tee connector has a cap at the bottom of it, so crud won't fall down far. Keep an eye on CL, I've seen new stainless liner kits for sale at less than half price.
Mwalsh9152 how long of a liner do you need? Also, when I sweep from the bottom up, I have a rope tied to the brush so if I break the fiberglass rod, I can still pull the brush down out of he chimney. Recommend a top down sweep with appropriate sized brush just prior to liner installation. Don't want to leave any stray creosote in the chimney to be concerned about.
I'm not exactly sure how long I need. Maybe 25'? This stove is on the first floor of a two story home.
Ok. I have one that is about 19' that I'm looking to divest myself of... Too short for your application...
You're welcome to "borrow" my idea and post it over there.... no violations of patents, trademarks or copyrights.
