Chimney Cleaning Tools - Soot Eater or Poly Brush?

Not neglected but the only fires that really get built are the ones for xmas and power outages. They aren't home for the most part during the winter for that matter.
I should add that the seasoned wood is tried. Basically what has happened in the more recent past is wood had been passed onto them from a friend whos trees were chopped down and then the wood got split and hauled to my parents, trailer load or truck full. Back when I was a kid (10-12 years old) dad had trees taken down to put up the Garagemahal and there was a decent amount of wood there but since we didn't heat with wood, it got taken to my aunts for her stove. I've mentioned her before on here, the meaning of seasoned wood and dry wood is apparent as likely it was split during the spring and burned in the fall. Not exactly the full cycle of being dry done here. I honestly wish I had asked more questions. But being a home OWNER, changes the perspective on EVERYTHING. Its the bills you pay that do it in to make such an investment. I've always wanted to heat with wood, often I think of a fireplace.
But hearing the whole woodstove and fireplace heat percentage arguments, I know what to choose. I've got my parents home plenty warm with that fireplace, but I know now its pretty much the opposite in terms of efficiency. It's just one of those things that I had wished I had learned more about as a youngster. But you're only gonna learn more about it if it surrounds your life as you grow up. Definitely learned a lot on this site and learned to explore a bit more into it.

 

The other thing that I have been thinking about is that of handling what I decide to go with. I assume the soot eater or the brush will not be that heavy. I can't do this from the top because I can not reach the top of the chimney since it is on the outside of the house. Is it difficult to control the soot eater if I am standing at the bottom of the chimney and working it up to the top; does it flop around or anything that I need to know about? I am guessing with the brush that I just push it up and down as I go.

 

Neither method is heavy per say...but the brush, if you have one that is worth having anyways, will have some resistance to it, nothing major IMO (you may feel otherwise, but I doubt it) and most brush rod sections come in 4' lengths. I think the SE sections are 3'...and it does bang around some once you get all the sections on it, but it is nothing violent, probably because of not having a lot of weight to it. I see no issues with doing a bottom up cleaning with your setup...

 

At my last house, I was bottom up. 17' I have always used the fiberglass wands and brush.
I pulled the double wall from the stove to the ceiling fixture. PITA, but the only way to go.
Getting on the roof was only if absolutely necessary. 12/12 pitch.
Even w/5 fiberglass wands it was wobbly.

 

I use a wire brush, top down, and it is simple. 20 minutes start to finish. It would work fine for your setup as well, up from the bottom.

 

I use a sooteater to clean bottom-up. Tape an open milk jug to the stovepipe, cut off the jug handle for the poles. Use a shop vac. Quick, effective results.

 

That is pretty neat; no muss, no fuss. So the soot eater is fairly stable to use?

 

Yes ma’am. I don’t consider myself particularly handy, and it was pretty straightforward.

 

I may go with the soot eater. I have some free Amazon funds to spend. I wanted a new camera but they are not cheap so it looks like a soot eater it may be.

 

There appear to be similar products to the sooteater on the market now. One uses nylon rods instead of fiberglass rods. The sooteater appears to be cheaper though. Also, someone mentioned that you can not use the sooteater on a square flue but I think I saw a video that stated you could; I think the video was on northlineexpress.com I think I will inspect the chimney today. I want to check my bracket system to make sure it is still solid. I am wondering if some tack welds could be made on the bracket system?

 

I'm glad I saw your setup. Mine is nearly the same except for 1-90 deg ell. Since I start on a short horizontal, I use the vac like you, then stuff an old towel
in the pipe after get my first section in. Then I go section by section with the extensions and the same on the way out. Limited mess with the vac running
and at the end I run the vac into the cleanup and get the rest. Nice setup!