Cleaning Pipe

bigchunk · Post by **bigchunk** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 10:44 am

how many people have let their stoves go out and cleaned the stack pipe this winter?

WNY · Post by **WNY** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 11:15 am

Do a search on Mid Winter Maintenance or cleaning. Looks like a few have already cleaned their pipes out at least once.

titleist1 · Post by **titleist1** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 2:23 pm

We have had two warmish days where I burned wood the night before so it would be out the following day allowing me to vacuum the top of the baffle plate and the back of the stove just inside the exhaust port. I started burning steadily the second week of November and first did it the week before Christmas and just did it again this past Saturday so about every 5-6 weeks.

It wasn't absolutely necessary for me to do it as the draft was still fine but it allows for better heat transfer via the channels for the convection fan. Also I am thinking it is more convenient to plan it for these semi-warm days than to have to do it on a 10* day because the draft is getting blocked. It takes about 3/4 hour from when I head to the workshop to get the shop vac until I am back in the house getting the stove started again.

I also vacuum out the horizontal section of pipe that is behind my baro going through the thimble at the same time, but there has been minimal fly ash there each time, maybe 1/2".

Dann757 · Post by **Dann757** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 3:19 pm

Well, I didn't let my stove go out, one mild morning last week the fire was very weak.It went out and I cleaned everything. My flat roof and short chimney made it easy to run my $16.00, 8" square chimney brush down the flue. I've got it attached to a piece of closet rod. I just needed a step ladder up there. Just a light coating of ash in the flue, and the still warm chimney carried a lot of the ash up and out.

tvb · Post by **tvb** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 4:41 pm

I clean the stove pipe through the tee and around the ash bin and exhaust vents while the stove is running. I'll turn it down to a low idle but wouldn't bother letting it go out unless I really had to.

bigchunk · Post by **bigchunk** » Wed. Jan. 28, 2009 11:20 pm

my draft was poor. so I took a look down ino the pipe the part coming out of the stove it had a very fine dust inside looked a couple inches deep so while the stove was running I took out the baro damper and vacumed it out. seems to have done the trick. just in time for this blizzard. now its better. I was gonna let the whole stove go out and start from scratch. something I realy didnt want to do.

Post by **Rob R.** » Thu. Jan. 29, 2009 6:37 am

This morning I tapped on my stove pipe with a screwdriver, instead of the "tink tink tink" I got "thunk thunk thunk"...so I think it is time to tear the pipe down and vacuum it out.

bperowski · Post by **bperowski** » Thu. Jan. 29, 2009 2:29 pm

Well, I didn't let it " go out"

, but I had to clean out the pipes about 2 weeks ago. The stove started burning "funny" (had to turn it up, burning fewer hours without any changes etc.). Burning juttol? coal and its creating alot of fly ash. settled down in the first 90 of the stove.

bigchunk · Post by **bigchunk** » Sat. Jan. 31, 2009 2:25 pm

while the stove was on I took the pipes off . I closed up the air inlets and calmed down the fire first. then I started unscrewing the pipe. lots of flysh. and some creosote from the wood fires earlier in the season. not alot mind you but geez gotta be on top of this stuff.

Uglysquirrel · Post by **Uglysquirrel** » Sat. Jan. 31, 2009 7:31 pm

This AM saw the manometer show .07-.08 instead of the .06, and saw the barometer flap not as open as it should. Tapped the plate, off fell powder from the side we can't see, looks like a bit less tha 1/8" of a coat in the horizontal, time to shut down, clean everything out.

Having a manometer permanently installed is kind of a safety item as you can see the draft changing for whatever reason.

Its really hard to thinking about letting it go out after all these weeks of keping it alive. Maybe the kids will appreciate the work it takes to keep the stove going when their feet get cold in a 65 deg oil fired house.

Does one one match still count for this type of preventative maintenance?