Chimney cleaning time

[DanF]

It's that time of year -- everyone that heats with wood should be thinking of giving that chimney a scrub before winter.

I gave DanB my Riteway for his shop, and got Matt's old Shenandoah from John (it's a complicated story.....). When we pulled my Riteway, I inspected the chimney, and it doesn't need cleaning once again.....haven't swept it in 3 years.

The reasons:

1. I don't let my stove smolder slowly any longer than over night, and in that case I fire it up very hot in the morning to burn off accumulated creasote.
   
2. I start every fire very hot with newspaper and my paper trash....I let it roar for a few minutes while starting it up.
   
3. I burn more aspen than pine, much cleaner, though less heat per log.
   
4. I'm a firefighter and respond to many woodstove -caused house and chimney fires. I don't EVER stoke my stove and let it smolder before leaving for town, and instead rely on my propane heater with thermostat. Too many things can happen with a burning stove while you are away.
   
5. And, on the fire protection topic, I don't ever run my generator and battery charger while I'm gone....after woodstoves, that's the leading cause of structure fires in my response area.
   
   

DANF

 

[RobD]

I rarely have to clean my fireplace either Dan. I have a thing called a Tulikivi with a bake oven and it is designed to run hot, heat up the large soap stone mass and then go out so basically I'm burning similar to you.

[windstuffnow]

  DanF,

   I have a furnace "add on" type wood burner.  I notice the chimney run itself doesn't need cleaning although I'll run the scrubber through it anyway... but... The furnace has an extention about 3 ft long from the furnace to the chimney with one elbow in it.   I find I have to remove this portion about 4 times per heating season and clean out the pipe, especially at the elbow.   I typically burn fairly hot fires but there are times where it shuts down the air inlet and simply smolders until the thermo kicks the fan on again.  

   What causes the build up in the elbow, is it cooling that area to much? and what could be done to help prevent it?

.

[richhagen]

We have occasional chimney fires here, but not many, not that many people here burn wood for heat.  It is mostly natural gas.  I'm not suprised by chimney fires being at the top of your list.  Here, electrical fires are near the top.  Often, bad wiring connections, overloaded or damaged wiring and cords, sometimes by improper fusing.  I am guessing that with the generators, it is overloaded wiring, or failed controller circuitry, or heat from the generator itself that is to blame.  Rich

[Experimental]

      Hi Dan,

      Sounds like you must be heating, a fairly large place -- as when we were burning wood -- if we didn,t keep it turned down, we would start to "melt"..

     I did , however , crack it open occationally to run hot, and burn off all the buildup, in the chimeney !!

     We switched to oil, some years ago, as we just didn,t have time to go get wood and weren,t home to tend the fires....

Now, we are thinking of going back to wood, as oil has gone to $3 a gallon !!!

     I did keep our wood stove though -- but after years in the shed -- it,s not to pretty !!!

    The thought of WINTER, makes me want to head south !!  Bill H....

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

And, on the fire protection topic, I don't ever run my generator and battery charger while I'm gone....after woodstoves, that's the leading cause of structure fires in my response area.

What's the story with that?

 - Are you talking gasoline/diesel engine gennies, or mills?

 - What's the fire-start mechanisms?  (Hydrogen blast on overcharge?  Charging system problem?  Engine?  {exhaust system?  cooling system failure?  fuel leak onto hot engine?}  Inverter?)

Reason I'm asking:  I'm planning to put in a mill at the vacation/retirement house in the next few months.  (This is at least partly to establish that I'll have mills, so if the developers build up behind us I don't get harassed when I move out there full-time and put up something serious.  And partly because I'm sick of coming out to a fridge full of spoiled food or having no power because (1) the lines are down again somewhere due to storms or (2) somebody up the road has had a fire and burned down the pole, and the power company turned off the whole road while they're fixing it.)

That place is unattended much of the time.  I want to know what to be careful about so as to keep risks (and insurance rates B-) ) to a reasonable level.  (Especially since it would involve unattended automatic backup for the fridge and furnace circuits.)

I'm already aware of some of the risks (such as flying blades, overcharge outgassing, overheating from overcurrent or shorts, tower collapse, electrical issues of high-current DC circuits, etc.)  But this sounds like some alternative energy systems in your area have a failure rate in unattended operation beyond what I'd consider reasonable.  So I'd like more details on what you're talking about.

I'm sure others on the board will be interested in any info you have about fire risks of alternative energy systems, too.

[nothing to lose]

Lighting, My geuss would be he meant feul powered gennies not wind gennies.

And fires from a feul powered gennie could be caused by any number of things, leaky feul lines/tanks, to close to a wall, bad wires, overloaded, cat knocks cardboard box against muffler etc...

Dan,

Nice to hear someone else mention burnable trash for fire starter. If only I could get the wife to understand when she throws those boxes in the trash to burn outside she is tossing out heat for the house!!

 I'll burn anything that burns clean in my burner, but I always find cereal boxes, macaronni & cheese boxes, old papers, toliet tissue tubes etc... in the trash in winter

I still pack sawdust and a little cooking oil into those tubes from paper towels and toliet tissue for fire starters also.

[ivandenisovich]

Ed,

I have a simular problem.  We use a Jotul stove with a 6 inch connector going to a six inch class A chimney.  Last weekend I figured I would clean the whole thing out and get ready for this years heating season.  The chimney and connector had a very fine coating of black soot, almost not worth while to brush it (I did anyway), however, in the house I have 2 45 degree elbow connectors to make the bend to the chimney support box in the living room ceiling.  I found that at those bends there was a pretty significant build up of soot and brown creasote.  I try to keep the fires hot but last spring we had several days were it was too hot so I cranked down the air intake.  I suppose I should open a window from now on instead.  

One theory I have is that the elbows have more area, so the surface temperature of the connector is slightly lower and there is more area on the inside so the smoke moves slower through that section of pipe.  I am going to try to re-arrange my set up to get rid of the elbows.

Paul

[hardworkinghippy]

...interesting that one about throwing away heat. Why do people waste so much?

I burned an old wooden chair yesterday and had a shower with the heat it generated. OK, I had to break up bits and hang around and turn it a bit while it burned - but it's so lovely playing with fire.

We're just about to build an extension (back kitchen and two extra bedrooms) and I'd like to know if you're pleased with your Tulikivi - especially for baking.  

[Scotth]

Another way to avoid cleaning your chimney is to invest in a woodstove that has a catalyst.Although expensive,they burn so clean there is virtually NO buildup in our pipes,including the elbows.You also use far less wood.As an example,two years ago I broke the catalyst trying to remove it from the stove(they are very fragile).We didn't replace it that year and used around 4+ bush cords to heat the house,plus,I was out on the roof 2 or 3 times brushing out the creosote.Last year we used a little more than 2 Bush cords and the chimney is spotless inside from top to bottom.Something to think about if buying a new stove.

[elvin1949]

corn stoves burn clean to.

later

elvin

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

We didn't replace it that year and used around 4+ bush cords to heat the house,plus,I was out on the roof 2 or 3 times brushing out the creosote.Last year we used a little more than 2 Bush cords and the chimney is spotless inside from top to bottom.Something to think about if buying a new stove.

Are you in the northern hemisphere?  If I recall correctly last winter up here was colder than the year before, too.  ( By a LOT.  Where is Al Gore when you need his Global Warming?  Or is that why you're using bush cords?  B-)  )  That makes using half as much wood with the catalyst even MORE impressive.

(Note that the broken catalyst might also have let more heat escape up the flue, too.  So not all of the savings might be due to the catalytic action and the numbers might not represent the actual efficiency improvement of a catalyst-containing stove versus a good non-catalyst design.)

[mudfoot]

How about those chimney cleaning logs, do they work , are they worth the cost, and can they be made in home?

[Clide]

Have you heard of battery chargers causing fires?

[Clide]

How much did the replacement catylist cartridge cost?

[Gagster]

Bear in mind, this is a SWAG

The airflow slows down and is turbulent right at the elbow.  Fast smooth-moving air doesn't deposit as much soot on the walls because it isn't banging into the side of the chimeny like it does in a slow turbulent area.  Once you've got goo on the walls of the chimeny in that area, it adds to the turbulence and the problem compounds itself quickly.



Like I said...  Just a SWAG.  Chimeny pipe isn't exactly mandrel bent exhaust pipe.

[mlz]

Better late then never, however, I have had an experience with a charger fire.  I think the battery decided to short on me while I was outside, anyway, I come in and the charger apparently had fried, which smoked the power cord going to the wall.  When I found it, it was just starting to catch on the wall paint.  

If I would have been away from home, I very likely wouldn't have had a home to come back to...  Now I put the smallest breaker I can get away with on all my chargers, this way the sucker will pop if any of the batteries short out.  This does mean I get a false pop if the batteries are super low, however that's a rare thing since I try to only discharge to 20%.