In our case, it's to see if a little birdy has found it's way in............ Or, because I can't remember if I cleaned the thing after the last fire in the spring.
Cleaned and ready to go. Got 3/4 gallon of white flaky dust. I know that sounds like a lot, but my liner is 23' tall and I burnt 6.5-7 cords last year. A few cracked fire bricks and a cracked baffle board, but I'm not gonna change them this year. Can't wait for first fire.
How clean does it have to be? I've got a thin layer of crud in some places that won't come off with a brush. Also, a few rust spots on the outside of stovepipe. Is it okay to use high temp spraypaint to touch up?
Ok, I'm done. Wind shifted from the northwest to blow any soot away from me. 23 feet of stainless. Just about 3 cups of dry soot, no shiny stuff. I am very pleased. I used my new Porter Cable driver, plenty of power. It beats hauling a cord up and having another thing to trip on the roof. I re-whipped the Soot Eater with new line. Some of you Jotul Castine owners may know the joy of lifting the baffle back into place...
Dawn stacked some wood in the shed while I swept the chimney. I ended up with about a half cool whip container's worth of dust since mid last season. This cool weather is wonderful!
Just finished yesterday. 28' stainless came out very clean, about an 1 1/2 ice cream buckets of light brown ash with no black. Last year I burned about 3 cords of 2 year old splits but at sometime during the winter I got into 1st year walnut that didn't do well for 3 days. I was hoping for less ash so I'm blaming some of it on the not quite dry walnut.
Just finished the cleaning today. Got about 2" of dust and a little bit of darker flake in the bottom of a 5 gallon pail. Now to be fair, I did a quick cleaning back in February when we had a brief warm up. I like to clean out the dust in the 18" horizontal section that goes through the wall.
I had mine done on Saturday. Had a bunch of soot on top of the stove innards before sweeping. I can tell I was burning low and slow at the end of the season. Also, it was warm and rainy and the wood may not have been as dry as the good stuff. Either way had about 3/4 gallon of stuff, mostly from the stove itself. Maybe a cup or two max from the stove pipe. The sweep service tried to do a good job and lifted the chimney cap off (we have to go from the bottom or use a bucket truck). Luckily it did not fall off and he was able to put it back on without damage.
Well I didn't do it this weekend but I'm planning g to do it next weekend. I have a question for y'all bottom up cleaners how do you catch all the stuff that comes out? I've been just letting it fall in the past but I would really like to keep it contained. I've tried using a bag but that just gets torn up and I still end up with stuff everywhere.
The professional sweep just lets it collect in the stove and then vacuums it up. We had to take out the stove pipe; so I placed an old sheet down (over the stove) and I held the vacuum hose at the bottom of the pipe while the sweep pushed up the rods.
Cleaned both my chimneys last month. I did my pellet stove with one of those whip style cleaners on a drill. Came out great. I had the wood stove professionally cleaned as that stove burns much hotter and is much more critical that it be clean. Found 2 birds in the stove though. They were starting to stink so I'm glad we got them out.
I just did mine, a little more than a cup and everything looks good to go , ready to burn i was on the roof so i took a couple aerial pictures of some of my stacks,i think i have a problem
Too bad the Apollo missions are all done. I would be curious to know if NASA could see your stacks from outer space!
I cleaned my chimnery yesterday and got about 2/3 of a coffee can of ash. I took the screen off of the top, the one I put up in the spring to keep the birds and bats out of my stove.
Cleaned them over Labor day weekend. I also added a 24" section of class a to the chimney to get my stack height within the 2" per 10' radius. It was close but it was a little short.
Cleaned mine today. Got about an ice cream tub of soot and such. It's ready for the winter now. And that's a good feeling.
