Does Burning Anthracite Eliminate Creosote From the Flue?

I don't have comment with regard to the subject line of this thread. I merely want to let italia899 (the OP) know that his Brunco insert looks mighty nice. I wish Brunco still made these. Built to last.

I think the flue gasses from the coal just dry out the creosote.

Not a good comparison of having a short case of creosote buildup being compared to a long season or seasonsss of creosote buildup before switching to the coal.
Results just may be a bit different.

Having been a wood burner for over 40 years, and now a predominately coal burner, still burning a tad of wood in shoulder seasons, I can share my observations. With an open chimney, "no cap" Rain will dissolve creosote and clean a chimney better than anything on the market. This is only when the chimney is cold. NO FIRE. Now at the end of each season I will burn wood in my Harman coal boiler for about 2 weeks in order to anoint the boiler & stovepipe with enough creosote to act as a preservative. And in the process my clay lined chimney also gets a good coating. However by fall the clay liner is relatively clean. This is with looking up through the cleanout door with a mirror on a clear day. Still when I fire up with coal residual soot falls until the chimney is spotless. Bottom line is for some reason, unknown to me, the chemical components of burning anthracite definitely attack creosote. So yes burning anthracite is a chimney cleanser!!!
Jim

Sunny Boy wrote:For what it's worth,.....

Because of the top cap being to restrictive, I always ran my fireplace hot, or any wind gusts would overpower the weaker draft and I'd get smoke puffs into the living room. That running it hot, plus using well seasoned wood, never let the creosote build up to a wet and thick gooey layer. The next season it would flaked off easily with a brush. There's never been any coal burning appliance hooked into that chimney.

The same happened in my range.

Last Spring, I took Rev Larry's creosote rust prevention advice and burned a couple of firebox loads of wood as the last fire. The creosote build up throughout the stove's flues was black, thin, and dry.

When I started the range two weeks ago on coal, all of the creosote layer that was not close enough to the firebed to get hot enough to be burned off by the coal fire, had scaled off shortly after starting the stove due to the heat expansion. I was able to easily brush off whatever didn't flak off and vac it all out of the flues.

I saw nothing that would lead me to believe the coal flue gases removed any of the creosote. Just burned it off in the flues closest to the firebox where the temps run 400F and above, and in cooler places it flaked off from temperature changes expansion/contraction.

Paul

Whether it was the coal gases interacting with the creosote or the expansion and contraction it wouldn't have happened if you continued to burn wood. The burning of coal whatever the action was the reason that the creosote came off.

I would tend to think that maybe the creosote flakes off with a coal fire is because the coal exhaust is so dry. Maybe it just dries the creosote out to the point that it becomes brittle and cracks?

Rob R. wrote:Sub-bituminous contains a lot of volatile gasses, some of which can condense in the boiler. Anthracite is a different beast.

I cleaned a lot of creosote out of my chimney after switching to anthracite. It dried out and fell to the bottom.

Chimney Cleaning

Wish I had access to some anthracite to see if would burn off this stuff. Any ideas as to how to clean this stuff off... I will post some pictures as soon as I can... might be you guys say not bad enough to bother with but build up on the water chamber bothers me .... corrosion and inhibits heat transfer.

The previous owner ran some creosote cleaner through this and scrubbed said it helped some but was back breaking to get it off

You might try some soot burning spray designed for oil burners. Available from oil burner supply houses. It works very well for oil soot.

blrman07 wrote:

Sunny Boy wrote:For what it's worth,.....

Because of the top cap being to restrictive, I always ran my fireplace hot, or any wind gusts would overpower the weaker draft and I'd get smoke puffs into the living room. That running it hot, plus using well seasoned wood, never let the creosote build up to a wet and thick gooey layer. The next season it would flaked off easily with a brush. There's never been any coal burning appliance hooked into that chimney.

The same happened in my range.

Last Spring, I took Rev Larry's creosote rust prevention advice and burned a couple of firebox loads of wood as the last fire. The creosote build up throughout the stove's flues was black, thin, and dry.

When I started the range two weeks ago on coal, all of the creosote layer that was not close enough to the firebed to get hot enough to be burned off by the coal fire, had scaled off shortly after starting the stove due to the heat expansion. I was able to easily brush off whatever didn't flak off and vac it all out of the flues.

I saw nothing that would lead me to believe the coal flue gases removed any of the creosote. Just burned it off in the flues closest to the firebox where the temps run 400F and above, and in cooler places it flaked off from temperature changes expansion/contraction.

Paul

Whether it was the coal gases interacting with the creosote or the expansion and contraction it wouldn't have happened if you continued to burn wood. The burning of coal whatever the action was the reason that the creosote came off.[/quote]

Yes, Rev.
But, my observation was that the creosote layer (BTW, thanks again for the tip) was not removed by any chemical reaction between coal combustion exhaust and the creosote as some seem to be implying (and I'm not saying they are wrong), but by thermal reaction expansion/contraction caused by the heat.

I'll try it again next year, but instead of starting out the Fall season with coal, I'll start with a few wood fires to see if the same creosote scaling takes place.

Paul

Starting burning coal last year to replace a worn out wood boiler I ran for 40 years. The last year of the wood boiler caused major creosote issues because of water leaking into the fire box. In just one season, that accumulated creosote resin has fallen off the clay tiles into the clean-out quite nicely. In another season or two, the tile will be almost like new. I believe it is the acidic gases from the burning coal that loosen the creosote from the flues. I have seen flues on other peoples homes that burned coal for many years and those flues look like brand new.

i have my keystoker hooked up to an old masonry chimney. when I bought the home I called a chimney sweep as I intended on burning wood. so called "inspector" looked at the chimney with a mirror and told me not to use it. he said it needed a liner, the cost to install said liner, several thousand dollars. we literally just bought the house and I hadn't even made a single mortgage payment. he charged me several hundred dollars and did nothing but look at it for less then 10 minutes. I was so pissed off. he never ran the suggestion by me that I could go with efficient, hot burning, old chimney safe anthracite coal. I don't doubt that the chimney is not something that I shouldn't not burn wood in, but the suggestion could have been made that coal was a good option due to much lower temps. the reality is he wanted my money and could care less about good advice. he could at the very least saved me some money with some advice that would have been worth what I paid the guy. I messed around with pellet stoves for 5 years. they are a terrible waste of money. I really wish the guy would have cleaned it and told to get a coal stove and only burn coal being that the flu tiles were cracked from the previous chimney fires, coal is a much safer fuel. the neighbors later informed me that the previous owner would "clean" the chimney by having intentional chimney fires. apparently one incident involved the fire dept putting out the chimney fire. the next day he was using the chimney after the fire dept put the fire out and told him not to use it anymore.

as far as the creosote in the chimney I cleaned it out as best as I could with a chimney cleaning brush. the first year I got heavy chunks out of the chimney. I was surprised this year that I got even more creosote out of the chimney. apparently coal does loosen up old crap.