How often do you clean your stove pipe

Once a month. Shame stove pipe is about like it was 100 years ago. I suck at putting it together. Any pro tips out there?

 

As often as needed.
I continue to check every couple months, and if it looks ok, off the roof I go. If it looks a little cruddy, I'll run the brush down.
Takes me less than 10 minutes.

 

I check mine about once every month or so. I usually say we'll I got the ladder out and the stove out well I might as well run the brush down it. Only takes me a few minutes and I keep telling myself an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

After burn season (May) , mid winter ( Mid Feb) & after shoulder season / the start of 24/7 burning (mid Oct)

Been lucky & not got much the last 3 cleanings,
I watch the cap, if it looks like it's getting dirty, I check .

 

Does anyone here clean from the bottom? I have a steep roof and the chimney is in the middle of the valley between two peaks. No way to get up there without a boom truck. We have ours professionally done every year in October. The wife is there when they do it, but they use some type of whip and go through the stove. I have had the cap grate plug twice now. When that has happened, I climb the roof, sit on the peak and use a long pole tree trimmer to knock of the blockage.

 

What kind of wire rope do yall use? because mine is an insert it has the goofy 45 degree bend from back to front and then a 45 degree from front to back on top of that. The fiberglass rods I have wont bend enough to get all the way thru the bends at the stove connection.

I had it cleaned and inspected last year, ran all that winter and bought the brush this spring and did it myself. I was amazed how little there was. Maybe the secondary burn helps with creosote, or maybe I'm just burning good wood..... or maybe doing a

 

You can take a standard brush head and use a rope. The brush will usually have a loop on the bottom...and then use the threaded end to attach something heavy to let gravity pull it down...or another rope to pull it down...just weld a loop onto a bolt and thread it in.

My dad clean his chimney like this for 30 years on the wood furnace...not because of bends though...his chimney was almost 40 feet and that would have been a lot of rods.

 

I clean mine around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentines Day, then at the end of the season. I could probably get away with less, but it only takes a few minutes and is cheap insurance.

 

I thought about doing something like that, but my brush has no loop for a pull situation.

I get 95% of the pipe, its that initial outlet out of the insert that bugs me and would put my mind to ease.

 

Growing up with wood heat, we always had a half bucket full of creosote, once a year. That was also a 45' tall chimney. So when the guy came to clean mine out the first time and got about a large coffee cup full, I was shocked and amazed.....

 

I have a 15 ft. flue, a straight vertical run to within 2 ft. of the ridge on a 3/12 pitched roof. Cleaning this is easy enough that I do it at least twice during burn season. I get about a quart or so of creosote, and some peaceful sleep knowing that a chimney fire probably won't happen.

 

45 foot chimney? Wow. Was this a 3 story home?

 

It was a custom built A frame that my dad designed the blue prints for and had amish build it. each floor had 10' ceilings. I'll try and get some pics from dad the next time I'm over there. It was only techniquely "2" stories, with an attic that was a full story and a half above the second floor. The vaulted ceilings in the top of the A were something to look at from the living room floor. We had to rent 50' worth of scaffolding every couple of years to change light bulbs and clean the overhead fans. I think inside dimensions were only 38' or so in the living room looking up.

here is the only pic I have from the outside. The stone chimney was both inside and outside the house. the stove sat on the hearth that was part of that chimney. It was 12'feet wide.



having my bedroom upstairs, with the open half of the second story that was vaulted made from some real uncomfortable winters. it would be 100 degrees upstairs and I would routinely leave my door shut with the window open.

 

How was the downstairs?

 

downstairs was mid 70's. Dad built the house around that chimney and stove. he put in electric baseboard heat as a backup. later on he wished he had done a central air/furnace ducting. we burnt from late sept thru april or even may some years. It was Very hot in the summers, but we'd open the front and rear sliding glass doors open and it as a nice natural breeze. The stove was a country comfort huge double door smoke dragon that would fit about 1/8 of a cord in it I think. lol. I've never seen another one like it, I'm pretty sure my lopi would fit inside the firebox of it.

found one more of the outside from the about 1995ish. We built the 40x60 pole barn beside the pool around 1996-1997. I can't remember the exact square footage, but it was in the 3200-3300 range.