creosote

[sandymiss]

Thanks for your sharing

simulation credit auto

 

[carinya]

Any opinions on when to clean the chimney ?

Straight after burning season or just before start of new season ?

 

[mike1234]

Any opinions on when to clean the chimney ?

Straight after burning season or just before start of new season ?

The way I do it (right or wrong):
I think right after the burning season is really important. Creosote + water (rain) = acid, really eats up a chimney, so get it out asap.
BUT, just to be safe, give it a quick sweep just before burning season too, just to make sure nothing has moved in to block it up.
(If I was paying someone, then I'd ask the professional when they think it is best.)
My first year I also cleaned it after 30 days, then 90 day, just to make sure things are burning as expected. This year I will clean it sometime 1/2 way through the season, just to be safe, although it is probably not really necessary.

 

[deck2]

I have a mid 80's kent in my basement/wood shop hooked up to 23ft 7.5 inch masonary chimney and use it when i go down to putter in the shop. From what I have been told that the Kent was a great stove when it was manufactured but we bought a new stove last year and installed it in the living room with new Class A SS chimney and what a diffrence 20 +/- years have made in the technology of wood burning.

If you are planning on heating your home with wood go ahead and drop the money(easy for me to say) on a new stove, have a good certified sweep come out and check your masonary chimney for cracks/gaps in the tiles and if all is good--hook up the new stove to what you have if it drafts good you should have no worries. Just make sure the stove you replace that Kent with is a good quailty stove.

The biggest diffrence I noticed between our old kent and just about every stove that I looked at manufactured now it the weight of the door. The new stoves today seem much heavier, and what a light show you get when the secondary burn fires up.

We heated our 1800 2ft ranch home with a little over 3 cords (cherry/hard maple/ash) this past winter in the Catskill Mts (1700 ft above sea level).

 

[carinya]

Thanks, deck2, for your comments about the old Kent and your new stove.

Well, Mike1234, I cleaned the chimney today. Slightly more than half a grocery sack of crud. Cleaning at this time of year, I would say, is dustier than in October. I'll have to wear a slightly better face mask than the bandana.....

Below is a pic of the two essentials I use for cleaning the chimney. Ooops, left out the third, the ladder.

 

[BrotherBart]

I used one of those scrappers for years. Worked great and I gave it to my neighbor after his chimney fire and he has been using it for fifteen years.

 

[carinya]

I used one of those scrappers for years. Worked great and I gave it to my neighbor after his chimney fire and he has been using it for fifteen years.

Was that also when you bought your super-efficient non-cat & didn't need to sweep chimney anymore :cheese:

 

[BrotherBart]

I used one of those scrappers for years. Worked great and I gave it to my neighbor after his chimney fire and he has been using it for fifteen years.

Was that also when you bought your super-efficient non-cat & didn't need to sweep chimney anymore :cheese:

Nope. Long before that. I sweep the pipe for the super efficient non-cat twice per season. Don't need to do it but once but old habits die hard. The greatest benefit came installing the liner into that masonry chimney.

 

[carinya]

BB, what is the internal size of the chimney ?

 

[BrotherBart]

BB, what is the internal size of the chimney ?

It was 7X12. Both of them. Now they are both 5.5" liners.