Chimneysweep

:date: 2026-09-21 09:49 :tags:

Last year at this time I was installing a chimney. That turned out very well and survived a very punishing winter. Overall I probably had a fire lit for six solid months of the last year. The warm weather is winding down, and last weekend I cleaned the chimney.

This post is a benchmark reference for people who have a chimney and are wondering if they should clean their own. The short answer is: probably yes.

I ordered this chimney brush kit for $22 (now $23). The rods were a bit floppier than I expected and I was nervous about them coming unfastened inside the chimney leaving a bigger problem. The product anticipated this and the instructions strongly encouraged taping each joint with electrical tape, which was provided. This of course makes assembly and disassembly more irritating but I'm just storing three 5' sections to minimize future hassle.

One might imagine, as I did, that using this tool would involve spinning it with a drill. But because of the flexibility of the rods and the fact that it all had to be taped before using, that strategy was not so obvious. Fortunately, just poking the brush up there seemed fine for dislodging most of what needed to be cleaned out. I did chuck it up once it was fully inside the chimney and with an assistant walking away with the drill we managed to get some gentle rotation. Just note that its usage is not entirely obvious.

I have 23 feet of chimney from the stove to the cap. The design of mine is deliberately quite easy to clean. I just take out the plug at the bottom of the tee and go up 17 feet and then go horizontally into the house a few feet. Then I had to pull the baffle out of the stove and do the last indoor vertical section with one of the aforementioned 5' sections.

So how did that go?

The first thing to note is that a lot of ash had accumulated in the tee right at the cleanout plug. If your chimney drops straight down into your fire, maybe this is much less of a factor. But when I opened the cleanout plug I could see I was in danger of the entire chimney getting completely blocked with ash.

Here's a closer look at that.

Here's what I collected from outside.

This operation is obviously pretty messy but I was able to contain the mess pretty well. I will remember to wear gloves next time.

It's difficult to appreciate what exactly is in there. Ash is very light and compressible. So I collected all the ash removed from the chimney and put it in a container I could weigh.

Here is the empty and full weights.

That is about 1.6kg [3.6lbs]. Which is about 70g of ash per foot of chimney run during the 6 months. That is an accumulation rate of about 16mg/hr.

Here are some things to consider when deciding if you should clean your chimney.

If you answered yes to some of these questions and don't like dying in housefires, I would recommend cleaning your chimney.