How And When To Clean Your Chimney

Clean your chimney regularly to avoid improper functioning and to prevent hazardous creosote fire. You need to take time cleaning services or can clean your chimney cleaning by yourself by following the simple and easy steps. In this article, we will tell you how to clean your chimney by using simple tools and techniques. 

Things You Need to Clean Your Chimney

How To Clean your Chimney

First thing first, cleaning an ordinary chimney is an easy task, but if your chimney has too much buildup of Creosote, then it will be hard for you to clean it. Thus, first, you need to inspect your chimney to know whether you can clean it by yourself or need to call a professional.

If you find that chimneys do not have a heavy buildup of Creosote, then you can use these simple steps to clean your chimney. 

Clean Chimney Cutaway: The fire starts in the chimney in the smoke shelf area or smoke chamber, so you are required first to clean the chimney cutaway. Remove the Creosote from all parts of your chimney that buildup in the inner walls of your chimney.

However, reaching this area is hard in most of the fireplaces, you need to check whether you can reach into your chimney cutaway and clean it easily with a brush. If you are unable to reach in the figure, then you can’t do this DIY chimney cleaning by yourself. 

Next, you have to see whether you can reach the chimney crown for cleaning. In case you have a high steep and pitched roof, or you cannot comfortably work on the roof, then you cannot be able to do this job, and you need professional chimney repair services. 

If there is a heavy buildup of Creosote in your chimney, you should pay attention immediately and begin to clean your chimney right away. If the buildup creosote catches fire, it will ignite at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough to burn your entire home as well as damages your complete property. 

Although if you are cleaning your chimney on a regular basis, you need to inspect it from a professional chimney inspector. He will tell you if there are any issues and how you can prevent your house from burning in fire.

These professionals are trained, and they can trace any kind of chimney inside issues even if it is clean. Thus, it is crucial to call a chimney professional periodically to check your chimney condition and if there are any issues that you cannot solve, ask them to repair all the issues in the chimney. 

If you are burning wet or green logs, then you have to clean your chimney in after every 50 logs burn. Green logs do not burn completely and smoke a lot—these unburned particles buildup smoke in the inside layer of the chimney that we call soot or Creosote. 

It would help if you burned complete dry birch or oak woods, they burn complete, clearer, and provide more warmth than green wood logs. With these wooden logs, you need to inspect and clean the chimney after every 70 logs burning. 

Also, make sure to check how many layers of Creosote have developed in the walls of the chimney. Use a poker and scratch it. If the soot is of matte black color and the layer is about ⅛ inch, then you can clean your chimney using the chimney sweep tools.

But if the buildup is dark, heavy, and shinier tarlike texture, then you have to stop using your fireplace and call a professional immediately. 

Steps To Clean Chimney By Yourself

• Clean liner using the chimney sweep brush, metal bristles for clay liner, and plastic bristles for metal liner. Make sure that the rod of the brush should be long enough to clean the inner chimney lines properly. 
• Buy a special brush to clean firefox. Noodle brush is perfect for removing soot from the sides of the firebox as well as clean the smoke shelf appropriately. The size of the brush does not come in the market for a fixed size. Thus you have to measure the height of the liner by going up the roof and measuring its size. 
• Seal the opening of the fireplace and duct with poly sheeting and duct tape. This will keep your inside home clean, and dust will not go out of the chimney liner.
• Connect the vacuum while brushing the liner. This will collect all the smoke particles and prevent the home interior from getting dusty. Make sure to buy the long vacuum hose so that it will easily help in cleaning the chimney. Also, close windows and doors of your house so that no smoke particles will enter inside the house through them. 
• Use a chimney sweep brush and run it up and down so many times to remove the soot buildup in the liners. Also, use a flashlight to check whether the liners are completely clean or not. Wear a dust mask while cleaning and check the liner. If you find any place that has remained untouched, then you can again take your brush and start cleaning. 

When to Clean Your Chimney

It would help if you cleaned your chimney during the beginning of fall, do not make any delay in it. If you are calling a professional to sweep the chimney, then they will come quickly in summer and help you get rid of the creosote buildup chimney throughout the winters.

However, if you are cleaning your chimney, then you can start it in late summers. You also start cleaning if any of the conditions apply:

• If the layer of Creosote is thicker or more than ¼ inch
• You have heavy liner or fireplace
• If Creosote or soot falling on the fire while burning of woods
• If you use green or unseasoned firewood for burning.