What size brush for 11" square chimney?

[dean]

I presume it should be either 11" or 12" square, but not sure if it should be slightly bigger.

Also - steel or plastic? Which is better for teracota?

Thanks!

Dean

[Edwin Pawlowski]

It must be at least 11" to work. 12" may be too tight though. I use steel, but have never tried plastic.

[Tom The Great]

I've used oversized brushes on flues, just that it was on standard built fire places. If you insert the brush all the way down, and have a smoke shelf/air chamber, you can then pull the brush out, without fighting with the upwardly bent brissles.

So, two things come to mind. If you are buying a brush for yourself, then get one properly sized, get the dementions of your flue first. Second, remember to sweep correctly, both for safety and cleanliness. :)

imho,

tom @

[dean]

Sweep down and then up, then pass a vacuum tube down the chimney to suck out as much as possible. I can't reach the top of the shelf from the living room.

Sounds ok?

[Tom The Great]

The idea, or plan I was taught, lossen the soot with bottom damper closed, and then open the damper and clean the fire box. That was it. Because the loose soot in flue would exit on the first fire.

The idea of vaccuming the inside of your flue sounds messy, potentially dangerious, and unnecessary.

Now I'm not a chimney sweep, so understand that.

tom

[dean]

Not sure what you mean. I push all the ash down to the bottom. I can't get to it coz I can't reach around the shelf .What else can I do except remove it from the top? All the ash is not going to disappear on the first fire, as far as I can see.

Tom The Great wrote:

[Tom The Great]

Usually Iwould just reach up with a dust pan, and or foxtail, and remove as much soot from the smoke shelf. The vacuum I used had a hepa filter (very large) and I would move slow enough to allow zero soot to exit my work space, so it was only used as an air cleaner. The soot and ash was picked up manually into bags.

I'm explaining what I was shown to do, since I'm not too sure what you want to do. In my experience, using a vacuum to pickup up soot/ash quickly (almost immediatly) clogged the filter, and made it useless. So two hands, a dust pan/foxtail, and bags were used.

later,

tom

[dean]

Tom - I can't reach through the damper in the insert to get to the shelf. I would have to remove the insert.

Anyway, I lugged my vacuum (6.5 HP Rigid) up to the roof and put the tube down 17' to the fireplace, and sucked out a good galon sized load of ash. Brush cleaned the pipe first, came out nice and clean. I am happy with this, and sitting in front of a roaring fire right now :)

Thanks all,

Dean

Tom The Great wrote: