Cleaning the Smoke Pipe ?

'Morning,
How often is everyone cleaning the "fly ash" from their pipes ? ( hate it when that happens... )
I've been burning the Mag. about 3 wks and cleaned a fair amount out, last nite. It was really pretty simple with the baro. "inline" with the run into the flue.
I stuck a long brush thru the baro., knocked the ash loose and then got the shop vac.
I have the comb. blower on all the time, so I suppose it's creating more in the pipe ?
What do you think about the chimney cleaning ? (frequency)
Thx, Mossy Beard

I just posted in the "Ash me no questions" thread a couple days ago about cleaning out the fly ash from my horizontal smoke pipe after 3 weeks. In prior years I only did it at the end of the season. This year I switched to Summit coal and after 3 weeks I had about the same as a whole season of burning Superior coal. Summit is a white ash coal and burns with alot more fly ash than a red ash coal.
As far as cleaning your chimney, I don't think I would worry about any vertical sections till the end of the season but any horizontal or 90's at the bottom of a vertical is where you need to clean. I'm going to replace the 90 where my vertical and horizontal pipes meet with a "T" so I can clean it without shutting down. I was surprised with the amount after 3 weeks but no big deal. Just adjust and move on.

I wasn't too alarmed... it's pretty easy, with my set up.
I'm using Reading coal.
Thx for the response.

Mossy Beard

Coalkirk makes a good point.....Allot will be "coal brand" dependent. I use Blaschak nut coal & only clean mine out at the end of the season. I only have about a 3' horizontal run to the wall thimble anyway & find very little fly ash when I dismantle the pipes for summer storage.

Depends on the coal. I went all last season and had about 1.25" of ash in the pipe, for almost 6 months of burning.