This site has been a lot of help for me in the past so I just wanted to share something. I don't care much for heights and especially getting on a metal roof in the winter. I devised a method for cleaning a straight triple wall pipe from the comfort of inside your home. Been doing this for over a year and it works great.
First off, my biggest problem before was the hardware cloth (steel screen) on the cap plugging up so I removed it for winter. If you don't replace it in the Spring, birds will find their way down. If you don't have a problem with screen clogging, don't worry about it. Moving on...If possible, pick a day where you can allow your stove to cool off and have alternate heat source for a couple hours.
1. Allow stove to die down and remove all ashes/coals then open stove door and allow it to cool down so you will not get burned.
2. Remove pipe from top of stove to ceiling "box". My box is about 12" x 12" square. Take pipe outside and use your brush to clean it out while allowing ceiling box to cool.
3. Probably by now, ceiling box is cool so touch sides to verify. If it is cool to touch, continue. If not wait until it has cooled.
4. Find a plastic trash bag that is big enough to fit around square ceiling box. I use a standard tall kitchen trash bag. Before attaching trash bag to box, lay bag down and place wide cellophane tape (like strapping tape) to cover a 4" x 4" square around the center of the SIDE of the bag. After doing this, place small hole in center of tape. The tape is to keep bag from tearing. You will follow the reason in a couple of steps.
5. Tear 4 pieces of tape about 6" long and place them nearby. Take the rod you use for your brush and place the end thru the hole in the bag that you put the tape on with threaded end going into top of bag. Attach your brush to rod.
6. Push end of brush just into bottom of pipe while placing bag around ceiling box. Take the 4 pieces of tape you tore off and attach bag to box at corners. Your bag should be tight around box and brush is now in pipe.
7. Place your hand around hole in bag where brush rod is coming thru and grip lightly as you work brush/rod up into pipe. This is so excess creosote/ash does not come back thru hole.
8. If you are using the threaded fiberglass "snap rods" continue adding lengths until you reach the top of the pipe.
9. After you have reached the top and have all of it brushed out, start disassembling rod as you pull it down pipe.
10. When you get to last section of rod, hold onto bag and remove tape from 4 corners of box. Chances are, you have less than a couple pounds of ash in the bag, but just be careful to pull bag down slowly and allow ash to fall to bottom.
11. Take bag, rod, and brush outside, disassemble brush and rod, and dispose of bag.
12. Come back in, reinstall pipe to stove/ceiling box, start fire, and enjoy.
After doing this for the past year, I can enjoy not having to go up on the roof and do it the hard way. This works great for me and I will clean it about every 6-8 weeks.
Good luck.
First off, my biggest problem before was the hardware cloth (steel screen) on the cap plugging up so I removed it for winter. If you don't replace it in the Spring, birds will find their way down. If you don't have a problem with screen clogging, don't worry about it. Moving on...If possible, pick a day where you can allow your stove to cool off and have alternate heat source for a couple hours.
1. Allow stove to die down and remove all ashes/coals then open stove door and allow it to cool down so you will not get burned.
2. Remove pipe from top of stove to ceiling "box". My box is about 12" x 12" square. Take pipe outside and use your brush to clean it out while allowing ceiling box to cool.
3. Probably by now, ceiling box is cool so touch sides to verify. If it is cool to touch, continue. If not wait until it has cooled.
4. Find a plastic trash bag that is big enough to fit around square ceiling box. I use a standard tall kitchen trash bag. Before attaching trash bag to box, lay bag down and place wide cellophane tape (like strapping tape) to cover a 4" x 4" square around the center of the SIDE of the bag. After doing this, place small hole in center of tape. The tape is to keep bag from tearing. You will follow the reason in a couple of steps.
5. Tear 4 pieces of tape about 6" long and place them nearby. Take the rod you use for your brush and place the end thru the hole in the bag that you put the tape on with threaded end going into top of bag. Attach your brush to rod.
6. Push end of brush just into bottom of pipe while placing bag around ceiling box. Take the 4 pieces of tape you tore off and attach bag to box at corners. Your bag should be tight around box and brush is now in pipe.
7. Place your hand around hole in bag where brush rod is coming thru and grip lightly as you work brush/rod up into pipe. This is so excess creosote/ash does not come back thru hole.
8. If you are using the threaded fiberglass "snap rods" continue adding lengths until you reach the top of the pipe.
9. After you have reached the top and have all of it brushed out, start disassembling rod as you pull it down pipe.
10. When you get to last section of rod, hold onto bag and remove tape from 4 corners of box. Chances are, you have less than a couple pounds of ash in the bag, but just be careful to pull bag down slowly and allow ash to fall to bottom.
11. Take bag, rod, and brush outside, disassemble brush and rod, and dispose of bag.
12. Come back in, reinstall pipe to stove/ceiling box, start fire, and enjoy.
After doing this for the past year, I can enjoy not having to go up on the roof and do it the hard way. This works great for me and I will clean it about every 6-8 weeks.
Good luck.
