sweeping a chimney

[jon ringwood]

how do i get to sweep the chimney on a wood burning stove, the boss of my brush won't go past the flue damper, as the gap is too small.

cheers

jon

[Rob Morley]

From the top?

[TonyK]

Take the burner out first, thats what we do (on all 4 of them!)

[Nick]

Hi Jon, happy new year. I have had a very similar problem for over 20 years. Best solution I have found is to have plenty of rods. Poke them up the chimney (without any end fitting) and keep adding rods until the loose end obeys gravity laws & can be grabbed and the brush/scraper/other fitted. This works with cane & fibre rods, I've never tried steel rods. I imagine this puts some strain on the chimney pot but I sweep mine every spring and haven't had any probs yet A two handed operation if there are any obstructions above. I have some o/head telephone cables very close by but a twizzle of the rods from down below has always cleared these quite easily with proper directions from the

2nd hand, usually SWMBO. HTH & good luck

Nick.

[Terry]

One traditional procdure here is to drop a rope down from the top so it can be reached from below. Have plenty of slack rope up top. Tie a small freshly cut spruce or fir tree suitably sized for the flue, to the rope and drop/jam it into the flue. Pull down from below and then up again, (two people recommended one up one down), so that the tree branches quickly 'scrub' the flue. If the fit is too tight break off a branch or two. Vacuum or shovel out the soot residue that falls down, having rigged plastic sheets, or whatever, to minimize soot into the room. Burn or otherwise dispose of the tree; if necessary in a plastic bag to the trash. Leave rope out in the rain; it may or may not wash off! (Or you can use a piece of wire instead of rope.)

[Rick Dipper]

Put a "door" in the pipe above the stove .........

The way I have seen it done is to put the brush up, then attach the brush to the rod, they way you have more manoverability on the brush

Rick