woodstove cleaning

[PromisedLand]

How do I clean a wood stove and chimney and where do I get the supplies I need? Evidently no professional chimney sweeps service my area.

[pheasantplucker]

Thirty years ago, I climbed on the roof with a rope with burlap bags tied every three or four feet. I lowered the rope down, my buddy grabbed it from inside the stove and we took turns pulling it back and forth. Worked pretty good.

[debra in ks]

You should be able to buy a brush kit with extended handles at your neighborhood farm and home type store. If you can't get on the roof and push the crud down, then disconnect the pipe from the stove and push the brush with the appropriate length of handle attached up and down. Be sure to put plastic down first or you'll have a heck of a mess.

[Selena]

But please, please do clean it. The seller of our house NEVER EVER cleaned his pipe/chimney. There was one inch of air space and the rest was creosote. Our chimney cleaner had never seen one so bad - hauled 5+ bags of creosote out of there. New pipe for our woodburner (seller had an insert) and a new liner as the old one was cracked. We still get a few chunks coming down every now and then and the chimney is stained. The neighbors are happy with us though - we only burn seasoned wood. He burned styrofoam, painted wood, newspaper slicks, and lord knows what else. It stunk when he burned.

[Philbee]

We have had the same stove and stove pipe for 27 years. If you clean the pipe regularly it should last a long time. We have a stove pipe brush that has a ring at one end. I get up on the roof of our single story house and take off the pipe cap and lower a rope down to the stove and the rope has a weight attached to it. The wife takes off the weight and attaches the rope to the brush. She then instructs me to pull the slack gently out of the rope while she guides the bush into place in the stove pipe. She then closes the door on the wood stove and that is important. She then grabs ahold of the pipe and gives me a yell and I gently pull the rope and the brush upwards while listening to instructions from the wife incase the pipe starts to seperates. If you clean the pipe a couple of times during the winter so as not to get too much buildup that makes the cleaning process easy. I'm sure that you know that burning good dry seasoned wood is better for you will get less build-up in your pipe. This works for us and I hope that what I have written is helpful to you.

Best wishes, ------- Philbee

[tamsam]

We have found that to clean the inside of the stove we get a good hot fire going with a good bed of coals and throw in a hand full of ice cream salt {rock salt}. It burns all different colors and turns the insde of the stove power white. Good luck. Sam

[Liese]

Hello Tamsam, We are trying to figure out what process is happening when you burn the rock salt?