Ten minutes with the sooteater. That's the same amount of junk I always get...from my uninsulated 14' liner that sees 2 restarts a day. Not bad considering that I'm mixing in some maple that could use more drying time. Even when burning 100% primo wood all season I get this amount. The 2 rows of maple are almost gone from my driveway! A couple splits of it burn fine when set in front of the stove for a while and then mixed with 15% fir. Still running 600° on a full load like always.
I need to be doing mine...my tubes need it... its been since Aprill since I've done it...They are saying 50's next weekend...
I cleaned mine today. Got up on the roof, and used the brush. Dropped the brush down the chimney, so had to disassemble the chimney to get it out. Made a ig mess of myself, almost slid off the roof (there was a little snow up there). Wife asks afterwards, "Isn't there some way to clean it without going on the roof?" I said, yep, and I ordered a SootEater from Lowe's. I added a LintEater to the order for the dryer vent, while I was at it, as the dryer is taking a LONG time to dry these days.
I'm a big fan of the soot eater. I cleaned mine late summer and I pushed down a little too far on mine and ended up knocking the T cap off. It got a little messy inside but I caught it early lol. It sure doesn't feel like mid-season in my neck of the woods. I'm still waiting for the cold temps to stick around. I'm blaming the warmer temps on the fact that I 1) Bought a snowblower this past Nov 2) Bought a vintage Duralite aluminum sled for myself so I don't have to try to fit on the kid's saucer sleds lol.
I really need to do this, being its my 1st burning season and some of my wood could use a little more seasoning! Probably should have done over Xmas break as they are calling for some cold weather for next 5 or so days!
I have been burning some junk wood this year, and did a cleaning last week. I expected a lot of buildup, but everything was normal. Guess I have been burning hot enough to make up for it.
If you're burning hot enough you should be fine. I never cleaned my insert mid-season and I burned some crappy wood my 1st year also and never cleaned a lot out of the chimney come spring.
Guess I am looking for that baseline clean out to compare something to going forward. Burning hot enough, burning in a particular stove temp range? When I have her going good she's cruising in the 450 - 550 range never really above that (this is going by my face mounted temp gauge) for 2 - 4hrs depending on the load, how much air I give it, etc... Not 100% sure what I've been doing sometimes is proper or correct. Before bed I'll rake the coals forward and load up the stove, let her catch fire pretty good and then turn down the air. Sometimes by doing that I feel I am generating more smoke, maybe am turning the air down too much? That is where my curiosity is with cleaning out my liner as I do this before bed and before work sometimes so if I am creating dragon smoke I want to see how much build up I am getting.
I can say on a few occasions on reloading I generate some smoke, sometimes not so much other times more smoke. I am also mixing some not as seasoned wood with seasoned wood to stretch myself.
That seems like a lot to me. The only time we got fairly close to that amount was when we were trying to choke down the heat output of the stove trying to get long extended burns. We have nice SS insulated chimneys though. Course now that I look up the Lopi 1250i firebox size of 1.6 cu ft that probably isn't very much at all. The baffle(s) come out easy ? I'm assuming the baffles have to be removed to get up the chimney like that.
As I said, 2 restarts a day and an uninsulated liner. Lopi uses firebricks for the baffle. I just push two of them up and slide them on top of the adjacent bricks.
First sweep since April. About a coffee can of fine black powder from 32’ of liner. We also clean bottom-up. Cleaning rod poked through the side of the trash bag, and wife holds the bag around the bottom of the Tee while I sweep. {edit: my pic didn’t feel worth a new thread so I jumped onto yours! My pile looks a lot like the amount you got. Most of the volume came from the top four feet of stack. }
I have a New Lopi Revere insert and I was wondering how much of the inside of the stove do I have to remove to do a quick chimney sweep?
*Assuming it's like my Republic* Just push up the 2 middle baffle bricks above the burn tubes. Slide them onto the adjacent bricks but leave them hanging over a little so you can move them back easily.
