# Chimney cleaning question



## Eyes Wide Open (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm asking on behalf of DH. We're new to wood stoves.

We have a wood stove with an external chimney. Inside, the chimney pipe leads from the stove to the outside with a few bends in the pipe - so it's not a straightforward cleaning job.

DH is comfortable cleaning the exterior part of the chimney, and it's just straight up and down. But he's wondering if he should unscrew the interior part and clean that as well, with all the elbows in it.

A local heating guy (he cleaned our oil boiler recently) has a wood stove himself and he was of the opinion that he wouldn't bother - that part of the chimney being so close to the fire and all, he figured most stuff (the creosote, basically) is getting burned off.

I wasn't so sure, though, and figured I'd ask the opinion of y'all. Should we risk unscrewing that part (and maybe messing something up) to give it a good clean, or figure it gets hot enough to be ok?

We burn the fire hot for quite a while twice a day.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

Is the pipe you have just single layer black stove pipe or is it the stainless steel triple layer? 

I used the single layer black stove pipe and creosote built up in it bad towards the top under the cap. 

I burned a hot fire all winter most of the time. The pipe didn't get hot enough up there to burn it off! It plugged up so tight a few times that I lost my draft. Had to go out and take the two top sections off and clean 'um out. It woulda been a mess if that caught fire..


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

If there is a horizontal run between two 90Âº elbows, I would take it apart and clean it. If there are only a couple 30Âº or 45Âº elbows that more or less shift the pipe over so it can exit thru the roof, then I'd just bang on the pipe a few times to loosen any creosote and have it fall down into the woodstove.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

"But he's wondering if he should unscrew the interior part and clean that as well, with all the elbows in it."

Yes. Pure and simple. Yes.


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## happychick (Sep 20, 2010)

You have to be careful with wood stoves that you are going to burn alot, that creasote adds up real quick. He needs to do a very good job or have a chimmney cleaner do it. 
Our chimmney hadn't been cleaned out in over 2 years, (we burn 24/7 in the winter for heat), we had a small chimmney fire because of the creasote. We had a chimmney cleaner come out this summer before we even thought about lighting it this fall. He thanked us for calling him, and said if we had of light it one more time the heat would have built up and exploded the chimmney off the side of the house, we saved our house from burning down! Looking up in their the chimmney only had a few in. open the creasote was so thick - and that was right above the stove.


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## RuffusWI (Aug 18, 2011)

I'm a volunteer fireman. I seen bad cleaning and no cleaning jobs.
Clean it. Might be a pain,but better than burning down your home.


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

While I agree with Cabin on this one I would probably take it apart or at least off to visually inspect it. You'll get a good sense of the conditoon of the pipes by tapping it if it seems full or weak they need further attention. My old wood furnace had an excellent heat exchanger so I would get a respectable amount of ash and condensate in the black pipes too.


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## Eyes Wide Open (Oct 14, 2010)

Just figured I'd update. He was nervous about taking it apart and screwing it up. But it wasn't difficult at all and it went back together just fine. So he did a thorough clean of the entire chimney, interior and exterior. The buildup wasn't so bad, which was expected since it was installed only last winter and we didn't have much wood - so it hasn't been used all that much yet. But DH is a lot happier now that he feels competent in cleaning it, and plans to do it a couple times over the winter season as well.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

The person who installed our stove (previous owners) had a sick sense of humor. You have to move the stove to get access to the horizontal section behind it. That has to be cleaned at least twice a year. That stove is heavy!!!!


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