A Tip for People with Woodburning Stoves.

I was bragging about not having to clean my chimney for 14 years a week or so ago. I am convinced that another reason I don't have creosote is that I seal off the cleanout hole completely.
If you have a cleanout in your chimney with the common cast iron door, it is far from air tight. The draft of the hot chimney above draws cold air in through that door and cools the smoke resulting in more creosote formation.
I fill a plastic bag with fiberglass insulation and stuff it into the chimney cleanout hole to prevent any outside air from entering.
Seems to work for me.

hey thanks for the tip! and i bet it increases the draft of the chimney also

We have a Jotel insert in our kitchen
fireplace and when they installed it 5
years ago they also ran a 6" stainless
flue liner that is sealed to the insert
outlet. It never gets run with the draft
open because it will run you out of the
house. I brush the chimney out twice a
season and never get more than a cereal
bowl,, never thought about the sealed
chimney, bet your right.

Stoves are supposed to have a certain amount of draft up the flue. If it is not strong enough you will get smoke in the room now and then. If it is too much you are sending too much heat up the chimney, plus it will make the fuel burn too fast and strong. Tip: be judicious at blocking places where air gets in.

Back in 1990 I bought a new Fireplace Xtrordinair--30" version and installed it on
the main floor near the center of our ranch style home. The class A chimney fastens
directly to the top of it. There are no cleanouts and it goes straight up out of the
roof. The unit has a catalytic converter in the top of it so the smoke is burned
also. I have never had to clean it.---Back in 2008 my dad passed away. He heated his
2 story house with a Utica oil fired Boiler and an Add-On "Royal" wood/coal boiler.
He was constantly having creosote problems with an outside 2 story masonry chimney,
and had a couple of chimney fires. He would never open up the wood boiler and let it
get up to 140F to 180F. My stepmother wanted nothing to do with the wood boiler after mmy dad passed,and
the old Utica boiler was beginning to leak between the sections, so I replaced the
oil fired boiler with a Bulgarious high efficiency boiler and removed the Royal
unit. I brought the Royal wood boiler over to my house and installed it in my
attached garage/shop. and plumbed it into my radiant heating system in our living
space. The class A chimney that I installed on the Royal boiler is hooked direct to
the 8"breach of the boiler and necked down to 6". There are 2 lengths of thick wall
stove pipe connecting the 6" class A chimney that runs from the ceiling of the shop
straight to the peak of the roof. About 8' of chimney total. The only issue that I
have had with this chimney was the 2 steel stove pipe sections between boiler and
ceiling jack needed replacement this fall. It has never had to be cleaned in it's 12
years of use. I do try to keep it in the 140-180F range which is easy because it has a aquastat controlled combustion fan and is relatively air tight.---Maybe many of you know this, but for those of you who don't, condensation starts to build in the firebox of a boiler at temps below 140F causing creosote buildup inside the boiler. Not an issue with a hot air furnace.-------------Loren

(quoted from post at 09:53:08 11/12/20) I was bragging about not having to clean my chimney for 14 years.....

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Please be careful with [i:795673ba3f]not [/i:795673ba3f]cleaning a wood stove chimney & flue. 14 years, wow! To me, seems unlikely that creosote has not built up during that time. There is no way to stop creosote from forming, and it doesn't disappear on it's own. It accumulates. As smoke cools and encounters moisture creosote is formed. While burning good dry hardwood, nice & hot certainly reduces the build up of creosote, it is still a byproduct of burning wood. If there's smoke, there's creosote. While reducing air intake at your clean out door helps the temperature of your chimney, the smoke does still cool as it rises up. Sooty creosote is easy enough to clean out, as are dry flakes. But once creosote becomes hard shiny and baked repeatedly, it can be near impossible to clean out. My friend, a mason, has rebuilt chimneys due to this.

Just be real sure your chimney is clean. Staying ahead of creosote is a major part of a properly maintained chimney.

Unfortunately at this time of year and on, the nightly news seems full of stories of house / chimney fires from wood stoves, sometimes tragic. Saw one report already the other night.

A few errors here. It would be very difficult to get creosote to form INSIDE a boiler unless the temp is running very, very low. The condensation will normally occur at the point up the pipe where the pipe cools below 250 degrees. Smoke does not need to encounter moisture, the moisture is a by product of combustion and is in the flue along with the smoke. Wood boiler and wood stove flue pipes need to be cleaned EVERY DAY. Burning poor grade wood with high moisture content at too low a temperature can result in the flue pipe becoming dangerously coated in just 24 hours. In order to give the pipe its daily cleaning simply stoke it with some hot burning fuel, leave the damper open and let it get up to over 400 degrees for a few minutes. This high heat will cause the days accumulation of creosote to ignite and burn out in a barely noticeable fire, without enough heat outside of the flue to cause any problem. Keep a long handled mirror handy to check your pipe and have a friendly chimney fire every day and stay safe.

be careful with wood burning stoves. a good friend of mine lost his house due to problems with wood burning stove

I have a Riteway in the basement with a cleanout door at face level where I can brush out the chimney from inside. Up until the last few years I've never had the
luxury of really dry wood so I would clean it every four or five weeks. I used to do like showcrop and stuff a ball of newspaper in the cleanout and light it to burn
off the creosote. Well, one time I waited too long between and could not control the burn. Scared the S**T out of me. Called the local VFD. The wife was out
shopping and came home to the fire trucks in the yard. I had some splainin to do. Luckily no real damage but I haven't done that since. With well seasoned wood I'll
brush it two or three times. What works for Brian I would not recommend. Too many variables in burning wood.

I haven't cleaned my chimney for years. But then it's only six feet tall. Outdoor boiler. LOL

(quoted from post at 18:14:57 11/12/20)
Tip: be judicious at blocking places where air gets in.

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Think about it........the only place you want air coming into a stove system is through the stove.

With a good "air-tight" stove you can control how much air that is.

thats exactly what i do with my woodstoves--each day after a slow burn thru the night i load it and open the draft to get it to burn hot and possibly a slow controlled chimney burn--since i built the chimneys--8 inch block with a flue pipe i feel they are pretty safe for a chimney burn

ell, before retirement I was factory trained and certified to install Harman wood and
coal burning appliances, and Evergreen/Pro Fab wood gasification outside and inside
wood boilers. Both companies were very specific about the 140F minimum boiler temp.
That range was critical to the longevity of the boiler's water jacket. Proper PH of
the boiler water is also very important. That source is what I based my response on. >
I have seen it in my own boiler. When water temp in boiler is less than 140F a black
sticky glaze starts forming on the inside of the firebox. When temp gets into the 160F
range the black glaze turns back to ash, that will brush off, and that is fact not
fiction.-----------Loren

(quoted from post at 15:00:48 11/12/20)

(quoted from post at 18:14:57 11/12/20)
Tip: be judicious at blocking places where air gets in.

Click to expand...

Think about it........the only place you want air coming into a stove system is through the stove.

With a good "air-tight" stove you can control how much air that is.

Click to expand...

Yes Brian, think about it. An air-tight stove, despite the name has a lot of air flowing through it, and it has to be the right amount. Too much and it burns too fast , too little and you will smoke your house up. Your flue has to "draw" in order for it to work, but if it draws too much through the stove it will burn too fast. Air being drawn elsewhere as with a barometric damper for really precise control, OR through a clean-out is NOT coming into the stove. It instead keeps too much air from drawing THROUGH the stove.

I think i told this story before--a not so bright family installed a wood stove in their house--caught the wall on fire and we the FD were called-put out the fire and found they just stuck the flue pipe thru the sheet rock in the chimney area-not too bright!!

On my outdoor boiler I remove the bottom cover and smack chimney with a rubber mallet ever few years.

Mine builds up abut so much then drops off during a hotter fire. Virtually self cleaning.

It keeps cooling air from entering the chimney and lessens the condensation of creosote vapors in the chimney

Plus control the burn and blowbacks,if I cut the drafts off on my Fisher Papa Bear stove it'll put the fire out.Bought it new in 1977 its been a great stove.

I have an air tight Earthstove in the basement of my single story ranch. I have to brush it usually twice per winter. I will get about 2/3 of a brown paper grocery bag full of soot. It soots up in the attic in the last 7 feet or so of my 4/12 roof where it gets cold. Its an 8 x8 clay flue. I wish it would draft better and hotter. The first winter I didn't check it up top and the hole was only about the size if my fist.

OR through a clean-out is NOT coming into the stove. It instead keeps too much air from drawing THROUGH the stove.

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The only way I want to control how much air is admitted to my stove is through the damper on the stove itself or possibly by the addition of a "butterfly" damper installed in the pipe itself before it enters the chimney..
I don't want it mitigated by a reduction of "draft" caused by cold air entering at some other point. As a matter of fact, the HearthStone company recommends a pipe damper when there is excessive draft in a chimney.
The point, again, is keeping the chimney flue as warm as possible which reduces the chance of creosote buildup.

I bet if you wrapped fiberglass insulation around the clay flue in your attic it would cut down on the creosote.

Loren I have a pro Fab Elite with a leak, far back corner. Haven't used it in three years now. They went belly up right when it happened. Haven't found a welder small enough to crawl in and fix it. I really liked that boiler and miss burning wood but with the cost of propane I can't see investing in a new boiler.

Use an outside wood furnace and have never cleaned the stack on it. Put it in in 2002 still works fine and any thing I see is just flakey stuff around the sides and will fall off if you tap it or just let it be. I burn whatever comes in the yard dry,green all of it. Never get enough time to cut wood ahead for heat. So cut all winter.