Hi All,
I just completed my first FULL cleaning of my chimney and flue. Whew... it is a relief, considering that I put it off all summer!
Good news: Almost all that came out of there was soot. No real build up of crud anywhere, after almost 2 years of burning. I had cleaned the main outside pipe in the spring, but not any of the interior pipes.
Here are some details for the folks that are considering doing it for the first time:
- my stove sits along an outside wall, with the double pipe extending up a couple of feet with a twist and a 90 degree elbow headed about 18" straight through the wall and up about 15' outside the house. Not an ideal situation, but it's all we could do with our floor plan.
I pretty much had to clean the outside from the bottom up, from the "T".
Mistakes:
- took apart the interior of the pipes first and pushed the soot out into the T. Not a big deal, but when I went to take the cap off the bottom of the T... cough, cough... I got a nice face full of soot!
Recommendation: WEAR A BLOODY DUST MASK! It's a very messy job. Also, take the cap off the outside BEFORE you sweep the inside!
- Also, I would recommend doing the outside first, then the inside, because when I did the outside, it ended up pushing a bunch of soot into the "just cleaned" inside channel. So, I had to re clean the inside again before closing up.
- I took most of the pipes on the inside of the house apart. I won't likely do that again. I'll buy the much-more-flexible cleaning rod next time and scrub the twisty pipes through the thimble from the outside. Should be much easier. It was a pain in the arse to reassemble all the pipes and get the screw holes all lined up.
Plus, the bottom pipe that fits over the main flue of the stove was really not installed well. The pipe just sits over the 6" exit mount on the top of the stove with no real fastening, because the screws that the installers put in there really didn't catch anything. I assessed that this should be fine, although not great. No evidence of smoke ever escaping through that joint.
I didn't disassemble my baffle. I kinda chickened out on doing that one this time. I may have had that thing out earlier last season. I could see it down through the top of the flue, and all that seemed to in there was soot, so I vacuumed that out.
So, that's my report. One happy and clean burner... ready for a full season that has yet to be embarked upon....!
Happy cleaning!
I just completed my first FULL cleaning of my chimney and flue. Whew... it is a relief, considering that I put it off all summer!
Good news: Almost all that came out of there was soot. No real build up of crud anywhere, after almost 2 years of burning. I had cleaned the main outside pipe in the spring, but not any of the interior pipes.
Here are some details for the folks that are considering doing it for the first time:
- my stove sits along an outside wall, with the double pipe extending up a couple of feet with a twist and a 90 degree elbow headed about 18" straight through the wall and up about 15' outside the house. Not an ideal situation, but it's all we could do with our floor plan.
I pretty much had to clean the outside from the bottom up, from the "T".
Mistakes:
- took apart the interior of the pipes first and pushed the soot out into the T. Not a big deal, but when I went to take the cap off the bottom of the T... cough, cough... I got a nice face full of soot!
Recommendation: WEAR A BLOODY DUST MASK! It's a very messy job. Also, take the cap off the outside BEFORE you sweep the inside!
- Also, I would recommend doing the outside first, then the inside, because when I did the outside, it ended up pushing a bunch of soot into the "just cleaned" inside channel. So, I had to re clean the inside again before closing up.
- I took most of the pipes on the inside of the house apart. I won't likely do that again. I'll buy the much-more-flexible cleaning rod next time and scrub the twisty pipes through the thimble from the outside. Should be much easier. It was a pain in the arse to reassemble all the pipes and get the screw holes all lined up.
Plus, the bottom pipe that fits over the main flue of the stove was really not installed well. The pipe just sits over the 6" exit mount on the top of the stove with no real fastening, because the screws that the installers put in there really didn't catch anything. I assessed that this should be fine, although not great. No evidence of smoke ever escaping through that joint.
I didn't disassemble my baffle. I kinda chickened out on doing that one this time. I may have had that thing out earlier last season. I could see it down through the top of the flue, and all that seemed to in there was soot, so I vacuumed that out.
So, that's my report. One happy and clean burner... ready for a full season that has yet to be embarked upon....!
Happy cleaning!