Lever action chimney cap cleaner

[Beary]

Thought I'd pop by to share a chuckle.
We've had zero chimney issues this year. Typically I would have had to clean it twice at least-> but it's been a very warm winter here (north idaho) this year. Now we finally get a cold snap and of course my draft goes to hell. Cleaning it's pretty simple... I have a soot eater, but it's still irritating and messy and frankly every time the damn liner seems fine. We get a little out but nothing crazy. Our wood is very, very dry this year and I thought I'd finally avoided all my prior issues.



While walking to.the shop to grab the shop vac and a drill, I glance up at the cap, I can't quite tell how clean/dirty it is from the ground but hmm

Grab the ole red ryder BB gun and fire off a little plunker. Sure enough it knocks some crusties off.

I unloaded 30 or so bb's at it and went inside to see if it did anything, the fire that before was dumping smoke into the room with the door cracked smoldering with it shut was now roaring!
Whoopee! We've a steeper roof, and I hate hate hate heights and it's icy... so the long distance cleaning tool is gonna work best until i get s different cap up there this summer.

 

[all night moe]

Good thing the Red Ryder isn't hi powered.
How high up? Is it possible to use the regular fiberglass rods? Just to tap on the sides of the cap? Our local Agway carries them in 6' lengths.

 

[Beary]

I think its a little under 30ft

We've an 'almost' daylight basement on that side of the house. So it's quite far up

 

[all night moe]

Oh okay, scratch that question. LOL

 

[stoveliker]

I have 2 ft up, a bit horizontal, and then 27 ft up (basement stove too with 2 stories above that).
I take the elbow and horizontal run off, go through the horizontal thimble and go all the way up to the cap with my soot eater.
Not a problem.

Now every other year I do get a chimney cleaner to go up there - I certainly won't given that there's only 18" of roof to walk on next to the gable end due to solar panels on the rest... No way in h*ll that I'm going to walk that high on that small of a strip at the edge...
I do like to have it inspected every now and then, cap and anything they see. SO every other year I get someone in. Peace of mind.