Cleaning cap with bypass open

[bikedennis]

I recently cleaned my flue without cleaning the cap because it looked ok. Now I think that it needs cleaning. Can I clean the cap without dismantling the flue and open the bypass to prevent junk from falling into the cat.

 

[Dieselhead]

You didn’t state what model you have, but on my king most debris that falls down the chimney with the bypass open will end up directly behind the cat. Even more will end up behind the cat if the bypass is closed, chimney cleaned, then bypass opened. The cat chamber must be cleaned after any sweeping in my case.

 

[bikedennis]

Sirocco 30.2

 

[Highbeam]

It depends. You can remove the cap to clean it, and maybe throw away that stupid bird screen. If you chimney is all vertical and you knock stuff down the flue then it will all pile up in the bypass area and bugger up the seal. If your chimney is not all vertical, maybe has a 90 somewhere and some horizontal pipe, then you can consider a small amount of debris falling down the stack as no big deal.

Open bypass or closed bypass doesn't matter. Stuff from above will pile up in all the wrong places. The bypass only opens a little bit.

 

[stoveliker]

Bottom line is that you'll need to take the pipe off the stove the vacuum behind the cat. Don't want either cat or bypass seal or mechanism to be covered in crud.

 

[Highbeam]

Bottom line is that you'll need to take the pipe off the stove the vacuum behind the cat. Don't want either cat or bypass seal or mechanism to be covered in crud.

Are you making it through a full season without cleaning the bypass seal area of fallen debris? One of the minor shortcomings of the BK combustion package is that the bypass sealing surface is so easily fouled by debris falling from above. I get more falling debris as the season goes on probably because of greater temperature swings causing the stuff to spall off. With every fire I reach up and sweep debris off of the seal.

 

[bikedennis]

All good comments. I decided to clean the entire flue and catch the debris from the cap with a bag. The cap was plugged.

 

[stoveliker]

Are you making it through a full season without cleaning the bypass seal area of fallen debris? One of the minor shortcomings of the BK combustion package is that the bypass sealing surface is so easily fouled by debris falling from above. I get more falling debris as the season goes on probably because of greater temperature swings causing the stuff to spall off. With every fire I reach up and sweep debris off of the seal.

I do one midseason cleaning. Not really needed but it feels better.
My cleaning is always with the stove pipe off, so at that point I do clean the bypass gasket, but it's not really needed because nothing falls there (during cleaning because no pipe and during burning I don't know why).