Chimney Sweep Before & After

[Marshy]

I decided to sweep the chimney today and took some pics while I was up there.

First my brush setup. I use a 8" square brush cable tied to a logging chain for gravity feed, on the other end it is cable tied to a 30' nylon rope for retrieval. I tie two knots a few feet apart near the end so I know its reaching the end as it sails down through.



I usually sweep 1-2 times a year. I can't remember when the last time I swept though, it could of been in Feb or March of this year or it could of been Nov or Dec of last year.



And this is after.



I took two dust pan fulls of creosote out of the cleanout.



Last heating seasons firewood was bought in log length in March 2014 and CSS through July and burnt that fall.

 

[mallardman]

Looks a lot better.


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[Trx250r180]

How does it get like that ? from choking the fire down ? I have stainless pipes on my wood stove in the shop ,have never had to sweep it .

 

[Marshy]

It could be, the stove has a thermostatic air control and its not uncommon for it to be throttled down quite a bit if its been stoked to the gills. It's got a good sized firebox so with that much fuel in it it had to throttle back to keep from melting down. Honestly I thought it was pretty good, have you ever checked your chimney? How do you know it never needs sweeping? What kind of stove and wood do you burn and how seasoned is it?

 

[Del_]

Wonder why the images aren't showing up for me?

 

[stihly dan]

That ash pan is not creosote, just ash. Good burning practice on your part.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

That is good?

I've never had that much junk in the chimney with my setup. Normally just a cup or two.

 

[Marshy]

I loaded them through the site... Maybe some thing on your end? Anyone else have issues?

 

[066blaster]

How many times do you go up and down?

 

[Marshy]

That is good?

I've never had that much junk in the chimney with my setup. Normally just a cup or two.

There are a lot of variables involved to compare your chimney to mine. Is yours an 8" square, cinder block construction with clay lining 30' tall? Heat transfer plays a big part in chimney deposits. I tend to think this is in good shape all things considered. The creosote was dry and brushed out without any tar like residue and no significant flow restriction after 8 cord of wood burnt. Next time I clean it I will take pics again and post them here so I can see what the difference is and how much wood/time goes through.

 

[Marshy]

How many times do you go up and down?

3 maybe 4 times but it varies. Some times the brush won't go all the way through on the first or second pass. This time it sailed through on the second run and on the way back up I went up and down in ~5 ft increments then did one more full run.

 

[svk]

That seems pretty darn good to me although I'm not an expert by any means. Amazing the wire brush cleaned it that well.

 

[Marshy]

I like using the gravity method, no rods to screw with, literally.

I think is cleans so well because it's dry deposits. To me that means that my fires are hot enough to dry any flammable deposits which causes chimney fires.

 

[Deleted member 83629]

i have seen worse.

 

[JeffHK454]

That's really a decent looking clay tile flue if it hadn't been cleaned in 10-12 months with a season of burning on it, there's nothing but ash in that pan.

 

[ashy larry]

I cleaned mine a week or so ago. It was worse than expected. I have 14' of stainless triple that runs up through my carport out of a hotblast. Im basically forced to choke mine down since its been mild weather and i need overnight burns. There was a lot of gooey black tar creosote the whole way up. How much do the creasote logs help before a good sweep?

 

[Marshy]

I cleaned mine a week or so ago. It was worse than expected. I have 14' of stainless triple that runs up through my carport out of a hotblast. Im basically forced to choke mine down since its been mild weather and i need overnight burns. There was a lot of gooey black tar creosote the whole way up. How much do the creasote logs help before a good sweep?

I don't know, never use anything like that. Just firewood.

 

[square1]

Anyone else have issues?

How much time do you have?

 

[Marshy]

How much time do you have?

Maybe a little too open ended eh? Lol

 

[zogger]

Wow, that before pic is nasty lookin'...cleaned up good though