The temperature finally cracked the freezing mark for a couple days in a row and the snow melted from the roof. Heavy rain expected the next couple days so I took the opportunity to inspect and clean the chimney.
I was fearing the worst because the outside of the chimney was covered in brown goo, dripping onto the rain collar, and the cap had some small creosote stalactites forming. When I got up there I was bummed to find the cap was fused on. After some persuasion the cap came off and looked down the flue to find the dreaded shiny black stuff. @#$%^. @#$%%&*. *&((&&^%^& **(&&*(((&^%$#$#.
So I climb back down get the flashlight to see how far down the creosote goes, questioning my burning prowess and wood quality the whole way. Shine the light down and find it to only be in the top 16" of flue. Phew. Run the brush down the rest of the flue...sounds like brush on bare metal most of the way. Pull the cap of the cleanout and get 1" of fine dry powder in the 8" cleanout cap.
Pulled the stove pipe (double wall) and found a touch of crunch black creosote in the apex of the elbow connector and some where the DSP meets class A. Thin coating of brown powder everywhere else. 1/2 cup max total.
Overall I'm pretty happy with this considering the through the wall, no-insulated chase, and old smoke dragon blaze king. I started burning mid-November and the chimney was cleaned at the end of last burning season.
I'll plan on cleaning again at the end of January just because the stage 3 at the top has me paranoid.
I was fearing the worst because the outside of the chimney was covered in brown goo, dripping onto the rain collar, and the cap had some small creosote stalactites forming. When I got up there I was bummed to find the cap was fused on. After some persuasion the cap came off and looked down the flue to find the dreaded shiny black stuff. @#$%^. @#$%%&*. *&((&&^%^& **(&&*(((&^%$#$#.
So I climb back down get the flashlight to see how far down the creosote goes, questioning my burning prowess and wood quality the whole way. Shine the light down and find it to only be in the top 16" of flue. Phew. Run the brush down the rest of the flue...sounds like brush on bare metal most of the way. Pull the cap of the cleanout and get 1" of fine dry powder in the 8" cleanout cap.
Pulled the stove pipe (double wall) and found a touch of crunch black creosote in the apex of the elbow connector and some where the DSP meets class A. Thin coating of brown powder everywhere else. 1/2 cup max total.
Overall I'm pretty happy with this considering the through the wall, no-insulated chase, and old smoke dragon blaze king. I started burning mid-November and the chimney was cleaned at the end of last burning season.
I'll plan on cleaning again at the end of January just because the stage 3 at the top has me paranoid.