Anyone have experience with cleaning a chimney?
 

Looking for some advice / perspective here.

I was going to hire a chimney sweeping company to clean our flue, as we've never had this done before (been using the fireplace on occassion for 4 years +).

My house was built in 1998 and looks like it has a stainless steele flue pipe / liner, so I'm hoping I wouldn't have any significant maintenance needs (other than the cleaning).

Anything I should be on the lookout for? Any recommendations?

My wife cleans my chimney at least once a week.

log chain
go up on the roof and drop one end down. rattle it around for awhile. should knock everything loose.
sec

Hmmmm...thinking that could dent the stainless steele.

Any other (serious) advice or thoughts?

The log chain deal is what most people I know do. If you want to go buy a brush, you could do that too.

I see - anyone think I should have any maintenance concerns with the stainless steele in a 11 year old home?

aint no chance you will dent your liner. I put one in last year, shit is high grade steel.

NO.

Thanks - again not the original owner of the home, but given the appearance and the year the home was built, I'm guessing it's stainless.

Thanks all.

well hello there mary poppins

only thing other than stainless liner is the old school chimney tile.
do you have a basement? if so does the chimney run through it? if it does do you have a soot door at the bottom?
If the answer is yes to any of these you need to find out if the liner has a cap at the bottom.
fireplace or stove insert?

I do.

For the low, low price of $200 I'll go up on your roof drop down a log chain and rattle it around.

I have a basement, but the chimney doesn't run throught it. No soot door - although I've heard about what you're talking about.

I live in the burbs, so I basically have the flu pipe, surrounded by the "wooden box" set up.

Just a basic woodburning fireplace. No stove insert - although I'd like one in ouir next home.

you shouldnt have nothin to worry about. you might go price 6in chimney sweeps at lowes/H.D. just to be sure....

Thanks for the info.

Is that just the chimney brush on the line deal?

I'm only good at cleaning pipes.

yes, most times around the stove pipe, HVAC exhaust stuff.

You should just hire a chimney sweep, they are not that expensive. While they are there I always have them clean out the dryer vent at the same time. Money well spent and if your house burns down because of a chimney fire you can blame them. Last time I paid $75 .

I think that's the route I'm going.

Thanks all.

If you're afraid of the log chain, tie a nylon rope around a handfull of old Tshirts, drop the rope down and pull it through like a gun bore cleaner.

I've had a colonoscopy. Does that count?

Pour some gasoline down in there from the roof. Then soak a towel in the leftover gasoline, light it, and throw it down the chimney. Then run.

The deposits in your chimeny contain some nasty stuff. See below. While your chance of contracting testicular cancer from an occasional cleaning are low, they are not zero. I advise anyone who decides to do this on your own to take necessary precautions to limit yourself to exposure of the stuff you knock free.

Also, don't fall off the roof.



My patient is a 39-year-old man who is a professional chimney sweep. He asked me if he should be getting chest x-rays or pulmonary function testing on any kind of a regular basis. Other than increased risk for scrotal cancer, I can't find anything listed for this occupation. What screening tests would you recommend?

Rick Davis, MD

Chimney sweeps are exposed to numerous hazardous chemicals in their daily work. They contact and inhale by-products of fossil fuel combustion, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carcinogenic metals (arsenic, nickel, chromium), carbon, etc. The study paper on the health of the sweep, cited by Gustavsson,[1] was published in 1775. This report was the first ever to identify an occupational cancer, in this case, an increase in the risk for scrotal cancer.

The best contemporary studies come from Sweden, where a large chimney sweep guild with good health records provides reasonable data.[1] Several studies have shown that chimney sweeps have a higher risk for malignancies, eg, prostate cancer,[2] esophageal cancer,[3] bladder cancer,[1] and lung cancer.[4]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/468905