Today I cleaned my chimney for the winter, I do it twice a year. Usually right after the new year and now before my first fire, I won't light one till halloween or so. My point I'm trying to make is that, there are many, many experienced and seasoned wood burners on this site, there is something to say about burning the "correct, and seasoned properly" woods. Do not burn wet, or unseasoned wood, it is dangerous! "ASK" It's not worth a fire and burning everything down you worked for. Inclosed is a couple pic's, After cleaning my chimney I got less than a coffee can of creosote, It's says my temps were right on, my wood was seasoned and correct. Not bad for an old smoke dragon! Listen and heed what is said here, all the people here will do nothing but want to help! have a "safe" burning winter Dave
Good post Dave. I would like to add that new burners should be checking their chimneys at least once per month especially in their first 2 years of wood burning. Some have said that is silly because a month is not very long. Yet, we know of folks who have had their chimneys completely clogged in only 2 weeks! This is what can happen by burning wood that is not dry enough and also some of this can be caused by not operating their stove correctly. But it is mostly because of the wood.
Yessir, Dennis is right on. Neighbor put in a wood stove in Sept last year. Vogelzang box stove or some such. Cut his wood in Oct & Nov. Plugged his chimney by Nov 15 or so. I cleaned it for Him, suggested he get rid of His Damper, stove, & wait till this year to burn any of that wood. I think he put in a better stove this summer, but I saw him stacking fresh cut wood near the door He uses to haul wood in, so we'll see. He's asked twice why he never sees smoke from my chimney. Oh well, I did my part. A C
The cleanout seems to be OK and tight! after I shut the door, I go back up on the roof and look down to see if I can see daylight, so far none, it is an old school one.
AC, you know that old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink! I just hope he doesn't learn a very bad lesson the hard way....
This is what came out of mine when I cleaned it for the first time after burning this past season. I did check it during the burning season as this was my first year. A flashlight and a mirror are important to have. Luckily I can see up the flue because of the bypass in the stove.
I can't "climb" up on the roof, so when I had metal bestos chimney installed, I installed a clean out tee at the bottom. (Ceiling inside) I bought a brush and used the extension rods from my roof snow rake to push the bush up to the top of the chimney, then pull it back down. ThIs method made it possible to clean the chimney whenever I wanted and didn't need to go outside to do it. Did that for 15 years without ever having a issue.
The PDF file is a page from my boiler manual that illustrates that there is little advantage of burning " GREEN " wood ! With a boiler ,burning green wood can become even a bigger issue . Going back more than 30 years our second boiler was a cast iron down drafter , with the entire firebox and flue passages entirely water-lined .The temperatures of these walls were cool so high firebox temperatures could not be achieved . When this boiler would go into idle mode LIQUID CREOSOTE would drip out of the bottom of the boiler onto the floor . The next step in the evolution of this set up was to add 1,000 gallons of storage with the idea that if the boiler was to burn full out this would eliminate the creosote problem! The creosote got even worst and became an ooze in the boiler and chimney that would turn the flue brush into a ball of tar . So the only way to keep the chimney clean was to deliberately set a chimney fire once a week to keep things clean . Back in this time period boiler return water temperature protection was not understood ( or at least I did not understand it) ;With storage the return water from the storage tank could be as low as 90 degrees F making firebox temperatures even lower . In 1983, when we discovered the Jetstream boiler and gasification the second boiler was removed after only 2 years of use . A side note to this story - the second boiler without storage burned 16 cords per year , and with storage this number dropped to 10 cords per year .The Jetstream with storage does the same load on 4 1/2 cords per year . About 4 years ago we got a new neighbor and this spring he came over and asked us what we did with the firewood that we were putting into the wood shed ,did we sell wood as he had never seen smoke coming out of the chimney! Seeing we heat both our home and domestic hot water year-round ,this is the ultimate compliment to a wood burner ( Hoarder). This is the chimney in the mid season just a hint of fly ash. The outside temperature was about 5 degrees F and not even a hint of steam .
Yikes. You scared me for a minute there Alan. I thought all that stuff up in the sky came out of your stack!
I have a noob question. I have been burning in a fireplace for years, granted part time on weekends, and had it inspected prior to my insert install. Not much creosote. Do EPA stoves/inserts produce more creosote than fireplaces, when the MC is the same in both cases? Thanks, Troop
I've been looking for the picture somewhere in my collection. It featured the smoke from our original smoke dragon and the smoke clouds were for real!
You don't need to show them Alan. We have some smoke dragons around here. Luckily not close to our house though! But if I ride around the area I can see them from far away.
There is no real way of damping the fireplace (choking of its air supply), so it burns more or less wide open. So if you have dry wood, there will be very little creosote! I would think the new EPA stoves when burning with dry wood and a brisk fire, they should produce very little creosote.
I agree with campinspector. With a fireplace, they suck so much air that normally creosote is not a problem. However, it can be if burning really green wood. But remember, it is not the stove that causes creosote. It is poor fuel burned in a stove that causes that black crap.
Thanks Allan and Dennis. Well I have some purdy dry wood, and I'm not a 24/7 burner at this location so I think I will check the chimney after the season ends.
