I’ve heard that a chimney should be inspected and cleaned at least once a year, typically before the burning season begins. However, once burning, should a chimney need to be cleaned regularly or would that be overkill?
I have no doubt that there are probably many factors, like how seasoned is the wood, what kind of wood, how clean/hot is the fire burning inside the stove, how often is burning, how long is it burning, etc.
Ultimately i’m just trying to calm a small fear i have in my new house. I’ve been burning since November, typically i start the fire when i get home from work, between 5:30 and 6pm and load the stove up before i go to bed around 11. On weekends i will start a fire at 7 or 8am, and keep it going all day. Does this kind of frequency lead to a faster creosote build up that would lead me to have to clean the chimney monthly, or can i stick with the once per year?
The advice here is that for occasional evening and weekend use, once a year is enough. For more frequent use, you should have your fire swept once before you start having fires then once again half way though the burning season.
It really depends on the type of wood you are burning. If it’s well seasoned hardwood, once a year is fine. If you are burning freshly cut wood, soft/sappy wood, then I would check it more often if it were my house.
I am not a chimney sweep, but I have been a volunteer firefighter for 20+ years. My experience has been that people who burn seasoned hardwoods and keep a fire going more often than not have very little trouble with the chimney. People who burn anything and do it even infrequently, are the ones we usually get called out to. (This is in no way a scientific study, just me thinking back on the chimney fire calls I have gone to). I will also say that because of my time as a firefighter, I am overly paranoid about these things. I have seen the despair on people’s faces when they watch their house burn, and the guilt of the homeowners when they realize that many fires are preventable. Saving a few bucks just isn’t worth the gamble when your home and family are at stake.
If you clean before the start of the season you may not need another cleaning until next year. You seem to be burning about 1/2 time altogether so that may get you through. Is this the first season? (I guess so if it’s a new house). If you only cleaned once a year you’d know the next year if it had built up too much in the previous year. How well prepared are you in case there is a chimney fire? Do you have easy access to pour water down the chimney if that happens? Will you catch a chimney fire quickly? If you catch it right away just dousing the fire in the fireplace may get it to go out. Do you have a brush to clean it yourself? Just a couple of hours scraping the flue mid-season should keep it safe. Did you get it professionally cleaned to start with?
Anyway, IANA chimney expert, I’ve helped friends build heavy use chimneys and clean them, talked to their friends who have been doing it for years, they all seem to think you can get through a whole season if you start clean but you should consult a professional if you have any concerns.
BTW: Is this is a central chimney or one build outside the house? The exterior ones cool faster and creosote builds up faster that way.
The house is 50 years old. I was left a shed full of firewood from the previous owners, half of it is good dry wood (oak and maple), the other half is so old and rotted that it seems to burns in a matter of minutes.
This chimney was cleaned in October by a sweep I found on Angie List. Took him all of three minutes to put his brush in the chimney, attach a few extension pools, jiggle it, and he was done, $200 went really quickly. After that I bought my own set to clean in the future. Also, there was an addition built on the house ten years ago and this chimney is enclosed within the addition now, only the top is exposed to the elements anymore.
In the event of a chimney fire, I don’t think I would even know it was happening, would I? I very much doubt I could get a ladder and bucket of water up on the roof in time to extinguish. In sticking with my better safe than sorry style, I think I’ll try to clean sorry than later. Even just to see how much, if any, creosote has built up over the last month and a half.
I agree with this. A buildup of pitch can lead to a chimney fire. Inspections are important because of cracks that may occur in the refractory. Cracks can allow hot embers to fall through to what is below the firebox, which may be flammable. A condo in the place we last lived caught fire because of faulty brick installation, and it was the second unit to have the problem. We ended up going to a direct vent gas insert; more warmth, less danger, much cleaner.
You may have thrown away $200. Too many of those places out there. The guy should have done a good inspection and scraped the walls with a brush one a rope with one guy on the top and and one guy at the bottom. Maybe you should find another guy and get a better quality cleaning done now.
Part of your OP mentions loading the stove up before you go to bed. Does that mean you put lots of wood in and turn down the damper? That’s the sort of burning condition that is conducive to creosote buildup. A cool, smoky fire. As you are new in the house, get a sweep to check/clean in a month or two so you can gauge the buildup. Sounds like some of the wood is good fuel and other is rotten punk. Make sure any wood you get for next year is properly seasoned as well. Improperly seasoned or unseasoned wood will have higher resin content and will allow creosote buildup more quickly.
My assumption is you are referring to a masonry open hearth fireplace and chimney. The OP stipulated a stove… Two different animals, and (probably) not applicable here.
Without knowing a more detailed description of your dynamics, it’s difficult to offer a definitive answer. As others have mentioned, there are all kinds of things that affect creosote build up, but even under the most ideal conditions you will have some degree of creosote accumulation… It is not instant death, and it is inevitable.
Even if all the stars (mis)align, and you end up with a chimney fire, if your exhaust is properly designed (be it masonry or some form of metallic/insulated pipe), it is not an instant disaster. Not to trivialize such a situation, but usually fire in a well designed chimney has no consequence other than an elevated heart rate. Think about it, they are supposed to be designed to handle… Fire.
How often you need to inspect your exhaust and the method you employ to clean it, when necessary, is greatly dependent upon factors that we aren’t aware of here. It is dependent on your system design and burning methods. However, as long as you maintain a proper flue ID, you should be OK.
Unless one has an extremely convoluted flue (not mentioned in the OP), there is no efficiency, quality, or mechanical advantage deemed by your two man requirement.
The damper lever on the stove is stuck, that fucker just will not budge. I don’t know if it is stuck open or stuck closed. The drawing in the manual makes it looks like it is stuck open. The manual, iirc, says that it’s optional to help get the fire started. I don’t know how old the stove itself actually is. For what ist worth, it is Harman Oakwood - http://blazinghotstoves.com/wp-content/gallery/harman-product-gallery/picture-545.jpg this model but mine is black. I load it about 3/4 of the way full, depending on size and shape i can fit about half a dozen logs in it.
It is a wood stove that now sits inside the hearth. The stonework had to be chiseled away so that the top corners of the stove, the whole top of the stove actually, could fit inside the hearth. I can offer you a picture if you’d like to see?
The cleaner had a sidekick who was inside and he vacuumed out the stove with a refrigerator-size shop vac.
One thing he did tell me is that the flue is lined with stainless steel tubes. He said that makes cleaning them quicker and easier. Figured with the ss liners i could do it just as fast and easy by myself with my own brush and poles.
