Do You Clean Your Own Chimney(S)?

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Belgianburner
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Post by Belgianburner » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 7:04 am

Have been thinking of using the money I spend to have mine cleaned for the equipment to start doing it myself. How many of you DIY?There is a "chimney sweep" trade convention in Lancaster (PA) this weekend, with seminars explaining new techniques, product displays, etc.

 
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coalkirk
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Post by coalkirk » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 7:20 am

Unless you are burning wood you shouldn't really need much in the way of chimney cleaning. The flyash will fall off of the chimney with very little encouragement. I've only cleaned mine once in 12 years. Kind of a funny story unless you ask my wife. My coal flue, an 8x8 terra cotta doesn't run straight up and down. It has a little detour around the firebox of my fireplace. So one year in the spring I asked my wife to look into the thimble where the coal boiler attached with a flashlight while I lowered a chain down from the top of the chimney. Just wanted her to let me know when the chain reached the level of the thimble. So I'm lowering away and I hear a lot of muffled something or other. OK? I shouted down the flue. She shouted back yes. When I got down and walked into
the basement she was covered in flyash. Not a happy camper.

 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 7:41 am

I cleaned mine when burning wood, but now with anthracite I don't have too, nothing in there, I brush the black stove pipe once a year. I have 3 terra cotta lined block chimneys, 6/3/4 x 6/3/4, I just bought a 7" square brush and enough screw together poles from your local lowes and I just use the 6" round brush for the pipes.

 
WNYRob
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Post by WNYRob » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 7:41 am

There really isn't too much too it. I have a stainless chimney, so it needs to be cleaned pretty well in the spring after heating season. I just take the cap off, wash it good, run a chimney brush to clean the flue and spray the top part of the flue with fluid film to keep humidity/rain off the metal surface. Last summer I left the top and bottom of my flue open all summer and I got very little rust formation on my pipe where the fluid film didn't reach. For the most part, I have a natural draft which keeps drier basement air flowing through the flue most of the summer, unless it is dead calm outside.

I am not sure what specialized equipment you need. My fly ash does cement itself to the sides of the flue fairly well, so I brush it pretty aggressively. Some guys just need to bang on the side of their flue and the ash just falls off. And like mentioned before, if you have a masonry chimney you probably don't need to clean it at all other than any metal that attaches to the bottom and any sort of metal chimney cap you may have. Plus if you don't have to worry about corrosion (non-metallic flue), then the little bit of build up on the walls will actually help insulate the flue.


 
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oliver power
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Post by oliver power » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 7:03 pm

I clean my own........

 
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gaw
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Post by gaw » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 8:57 pm

When I clean the boiler I clean the fly ash out of the sump, thimble, and stove pipe and that is the extent of my chimney cleaning. The house my mom lives in has burned coal since the late '40s or early '50s and to my knowledge has never been cleaned. We have used a mirror to look already but there has never been any buildup.

Remember we are talking about burning coal only, not wood.

 
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2001Sierra
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Post by 2001Sierra » Sat. Feb. 21, 2015 9:56 pm

With my hand fed I stopped sweeping the terra cotta 8 x 8 chimney after a couple of years. In the fall I would just vacuum out the bottom before starting out. Now that I have a stoker, I brush annually, and vacuum out at the thimble. The fly ash from my new Keystoker 90 pushes much more ash up the chimney. I vac the horizontal pipe from the stove to the thimble mid way through the season, by removing the baro and cleaning with the hose in both directions.

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