Rotary Chimney Cleaning Tools?

[wesmann]

It might be time to stop climbing to clean my chimney. I've seen adds for a chimney cleaning tool with something like a weed wacker head on a flexible rod driven by a drill. Has anyone used one? I'll have to go in through the chimney thimble into an 8x10 flue and up about twenty feet. Thanks for any info.

 

[PILOON]

I seem to recall that there is also an ultrasound cleaning process being used.

 

[brutus54]

Wesmann, our log cabin has a very steep roof pitch and that is how we get it cleaned. They take off the clean out plug at the bottom of the pipe and just add sections to reach the top. Then they take the pipe off the stove and go through the wall to the chimney pipe, and the pipe from stove with 2 90deg elbows is laid out on the grass and cleaned. They have used fiberglass rods as well as flexible steel rods.

 

[RalphVa]

I used some old tire chains, connected together (e.g. 2 sets of chains). Just run them around the outside of the chimney. Vacuumed out the stuff from the bottom inside the house. Had a wood stove in the basement of the NJ house, and the Vt house was heated by a leaky stove. Never had anything from the Vt house but plenty of stuff knocked down in the NJ pipe. These were pipes, not chimneys, but chimneys are usually lined with a relatively smooth pipe inside.

 

[oosik]

When we built our log cabin I installed a "cleanout T". Uses the old style bristle brush on many fiberglass extension rods. Rod the vertical - rod the horizontal. Open the "T" and remove the residue.

Did this every fall. It was the one time we brought the shop vac to the cabin. Suck up the mess.

Never had much carbon build-up in the chimney. Maybe because the only wood we burned was birch. The birch on our property looked like a spaghetti farm. Small diameter - uber tall.

 

[rangerfredbob]

I got one of those drill from the bottom deals from Amazon, it works pretty good, there's not much of a jog in my chimney from the stove so I just take the fire bricks off the top and go through that, it gets a lot of soot out. Of course my insert uses a flexible round 6" insert tube deal...

 

[wesmann]

Thanks to all. I,ll give It a try. I live in Western MA but when I am on the roof I swear I can see the Boston harbor.

 

[rangerfredbob]

I have a 12/12 roof and just enough room between the gutter and power line to put a ladder in one spot against the brick chimney which is why I went this route... but it's better than hiring someone every couple years...

 

[RalphVa]

Thanks to all. I,ll give It a try. I live in Western MA but when I am on the roof I swear I can see the Boston harbor.

We had a house in NJ on a hill, 40 miles west of NYC. On the really rare clear day, we could see the twin towers. Course, they're all cloudy to see them now.

 

[otlski]

I switched to the rotary style about four years ago. It cleans much better and faster than the standard round brushes. I have the double/triple wall six inch round mechanical chimney so it is designed exactly for that. I do not know how it would do with a rectangular cross section chimney.

The flexible extensions are a plastic material so I do worry about durability but so far so good. Since it relies on centripetal force to make contact, if a section ever did fail I would expect the brush and remaining sections to fall back to the bottom.

I go up from the bottom about 25 feet in mostly a straight shot but with a 22 degree jog near the top.

 

[oosik]

I found that the standard round 6" chimney brush worked just great. If it's done every year the cleaning action should be adequate. My chimney was 6" round triple wall SS.

 

[Wagtail]

Firstly, my wood-heater chimney is straight up and down with a 30 degree pitch on the colorbond (metal) roof. My heater has a non-removeable internal plate, so I can only 'sweep' from the top.

My chimney sweep of choice = a steel star-picket (T-post, Y-post, etc...) with a few wraps of chicken wire (about a yard/metre long & a foot/30cm high) wired to the 'top' of the picket. There are handy holes in the picket to run the wire through to hold/tie the chicken wire onto the picket. If it's not wide enough, just add more wraps of chicken wire.

I then tie an appropriate length of rope (diameter to be able to thread through the picket's lowest 'hole' (towards the point).

I drop it down the chimney, chicken wire end first, and work the whole thing up & down the chimney. I do need to clean out the plate of the heater a few times during the operation so that I don't compact the 'sweepings'.

The chimney is 'shiny clean' at the end... and I haven't had to spend $$$s on sweeping gadgets/brushes.

 

[geteh]

Firstly, my wood-heater chimney is straight up and down with a 30 degree pitch on the colorbond (metal) roof. My heater has a non-removeable internal plate, so I can only 'sweep' from the top.

My chimney sweep of choice = a steel star-picket (T-post, Y-post, etc...) with a few wraps of chicken wire (about a yard/metre long & a foot/30cm high) wired to the 'top' of the picket. There are handy holes in the picket to run the wire through to hold/tie the chicken wire onto the picket. If it's not wide enough, just add more wraps of chicken wire.

I then tie an appropriate length of rope (diameter to be able to thread through the picket's lowest 'hole' (towards the point).

I drop it down the chimney, chicken wire end first, and work the whole thing up & down the chimney. I do need to clean out the plate of the heater a few times during the operation so that I don't compact the 'sweepings'.
https://unitedhomeservices.com/chimney-sweep/dallas-tx/
The chimney is 'shiny clean' at the end... and I haven't had to spend $$$s on sweeping gadgets/brushes.

I have recently removed an old fire surround and opened up a fire place. We swept this ourselves and very little came out and we saw the sweep at the top. Next year I am hoping to put a log burning stove in but due to huge costs involved with the rest of the refurbishment ( re wiring, plastering, strapping etc) it is not possible right now. This said my other half has indicated that at christmas and the like she would like us to use it as an open fire until we install the burner.

The question is should I get it check and professionally swept? I obviously would hate to have a chimney fire or any other problems, does the self cleaning/seeing the sweep out the top mean there are no blockages? I assume so and also I assume there could be other problems I wouldn't be able to detect having no experience of fireplaces.

 

[ponytug]

I have recently removed an old fire surround and opened up a fire place. We swept this ourselves and very little came out and we saw the sweep at the top. Next year I am hoping to put a log burning stove in but due to huge costs involved with the rest of the refurbishment ( re wiring, plastering, strapping etc) it is not possible right now. This said my other half has indicated that at christmas and the like she would like us to use it as an open fire until we install the burner.

The question is should I get it check and professionally swept? I obviously would hate to have a chimney fire or any other problems, does the self cleaning/seeing the sweep out the top mean there are no blockages? I assume so and also I assume there could be other problems I wouldn't be able to detect having no experience of fireplaces.

You might put in your location; it helps folks get you a more tailored response.

I would have it checked by a professional. A brush going through is one thing, but it doesn't tell you anything about cracks in the masonry, or poorly fitting connections in the pipe, or poor clearances to the flue elsewhere. I suspect that you would not want to find out the hard way.

All the best,

Peter

 

[geteh]

You might put in your location; it helps folks get you a more tailored response.

I would have it checked by a professional. A brush going through is one thing, but it doesn't tell you anything about cracks in the masonry, or poorly fitting connections in the pipe, or poor clearances to the flue elsewhere. I suspect that you would not want to find out the hard way.

All the best,

Peter
You might put in your location; it helps folks get you a more tailored response.
신용카드 현금화
I would have it checked by a professional. A brush going through is one thing, but it doesn't tell you anything about cracks in the masonry, or poorly fitting connections in the pipe, or poor clearances to the flue elsewhere. I suspect that you would not want to find out the hard way.

All the best,

thank you so much for your suggestion