What's on top of your smoke shelf?
Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:11 pm
I tried cleaning my own chimney on Saturday. last time I hired a sweep and he put some tools up there and did a little scraping and thought all was ok.
I burned a lot since so I cant' really blame him but I think what happened is he breezed over the job and left a substantial fire hazard.
I scraped what I could from inside the firebox and went up on the roof with a square brush on a long pole. I tied a rope to the end of the pole in case I dropped the thing.... My brush was a bit loose but at least I ran it up and down trying to push it into all the corners. I didn't find any sign of restriction. it had 1/8th or so of flaky stuff that seemed to come off easily.
I brushed it as well as I could and returned down to the firebox.
there is about a 1 inch gap near the front of the firebox. the back of the firebox slopes up at an angle and this forms a shelf , its actually a V shape inside there.
I made up a scraper tool by attaching some 2'x4" tin to a handle and bent it to fit in there and started pulling the stuff off the shelf.
I was really surprised how much was in there. I think it was not cleaned out properly up there for a very long time. debris collects there and I already raked out about at least enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket. It is hard to see or access so I plan to try making a vacuum attachment to suck it out and maybe I can get a camera in there or something..
so my point is check this area if you have not. I was not aware it could contain so much flammable material and I'm glad I didn't just blindly hire this out to the same guy again. evidently fires often start from the debris in this area catching. I had initially envisioned the creosote getting stuck to the sides of the chimney to be the main issue so I learned a bit.
I attached a diagram. on mine it is hard to get to or to see in there. on mine, the V shape is deep enough that I think there is another bucket of the stuff sitting up there but I wont really know until i know its empty. the stuff is flammable and what I found was a considerable amount of fuel being stored up there right above my fire that I wasn't aware of. I've since read of circumstances where others had their chimneys professionally cleaned and then had a fire soon after. I can see how that could happen just because some aren't aware the existence of the smoke shelf. newer houses might not have quite the same design. Newer ones are often more for show than heat.
I saw a video where one guy had the chimney on the outside of the house and the mason installed a clean out to access the area from outdoors. I dont see any damper but maybe I need to add one or maybe I just need to look more closely at it. there is some metal that appears to be embedded but I couldn't see a hinge or anything.. I might be missing the damper or maybe there just never was one, not sure. I'll deal with that later.
I also have some loose firebrick at the back so I will try to get some of the right type of high temp cement to do a little patch. my screen and grate could be made better too. I have the grate on top of some bits of I beam so it holds a fair amount of ash. I don't use the ash dump. I just remove it from the firebox because Its easier for me. maybe the ashes help protect the brick underneath the fire. The ash is not the hazard, the creosote is.
so just wanted to pass that along. maybe some others have the same situation and are unaware of it especially if they hire this out, they may just trust that the sweep did it right.
I burned a lot since so I cant' really blame him but I think what happened is he breezed over the job and left a substantial fire hazard.
I scraped what I could from inside the firebox and went up on the roof with a square brush on a long pole. I tied a rope to the end of the pole in case I dropped the thing.... My brush was a bit loose but at least I ran it up and down trying to push it into all the corners. I didn't find any sign of restriction. it had 1/8th or so of flaky stuff that seemed to come off easily.
I brushed it as well as I could and returned down to the firebox.
there is about a 1 inch gap near the front of the firebox. the back of the firebox slopes up at an angle and this forms a shelf , its actually a V shape inside there.
I made up a scraper tool by attaching some 2'x4" tin to a handle and bent it to fit in there and started pulling the stuff off the shelf.
I was really surprised how much was in there. I think it was not cleaned out properly up there for a very long time. debris collects there and I already raked out about at least enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket. It is hard to see or access so I plan to try making a vacuum attachment to suck it out and maybe I can get a camera in there or something..
so my point is check this area if you have not. I was not aware it could contain so much flammable material and I'm glad I didn't just blindly hire this out to the same guy again. evidently fires often start from the debris in this area catching. I had initially envisioned the creosote getting stuck to the sides of the chimney to be the main issue so I learned a bit.
I attached a diagram. on mine it is hard to get to or to see in there. on mine, the V shape is deep enough that I think there is another bucket of the stuff sitting up there but I wont really know until i know its empty. the stuff is flammable and what I found was a considerable amount of fuel being stored up there right above my fire that I wasn't aware of. I've since read of circumstances where others had their chimneys professionally cleaned and then had a fire soon after. I can see how that could happen just because some aren't aware the existence of the smoke shelf. newer houses might not have quite the same design. Newer ones are often more for show than heat.
I saw a video where one guy had the chimney on the outside of the house and the mason installed a clean out to access the area from outdoors. I dont see any damper but maybe I need to add one or maybe I just need to look more closely at it. there is some metal that appears to be embedded but I couldn't see a hinge or anything.. I might be missing the damper or maybe there just never was one, not sure. I'll deal with that later.
I also have some loose firebrick at the back so I will try to get some of the right type of high temp cement to do a little patch. my screen and grate could be made better too. I have the grate on top of some bits of I beam so it holds a fair amount of ash. I don't use the ash dump. I just remove it from the firebox because Its easier for me. maybe the ashes help protect the brick underneath the fire. The ash is not the hazard, the creosote is.
so just wanted to pass that along. maybe some others have the same situation and are unaware of it especially if they hire this out, they may just trust that the sweep did it right.