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Spring Cleaning the Homestead Wood Burner

© Debra Eversole

As spring turns to summer, I make it my habit to clean our freestanding wood burner from top to bottom. I clean that heating source until every particle of ash and creosote are gone. Here's what I do:

I begin by removing the wood ash as best as I can after there hasn't been a fire in the wood burner for a couple of days. It helps if you stir the ashes every few hours or so, bringing them from the bottom to the top of the pile. After I've removed the bulk of the ashes, I allow the wood burner to cool completely. This takes a good day or two here because of the firebrick lining our unit sports.

Once the wood burner has cooled completely, I start with the stovepipe. Off comes the cap on top of the pipe. (That gets cleaned on the ground with charcoal grill brushes.) I take an eight foot length of sturdy baseboard trim (easily and cheaply purchased at the hardware store) and scrape the interior of the pipe until all traces of creosote have been removed. Better yet would be to use a special kit designed for this purpose with special extension brushes and such. Best case scenario, of course, would be to hire a Chimney Sweep. More on that later.

After the upper portion of the stovepipe is spotless, I go inside to attend to the lower portion using the same manner. I remove the elbow and stovepipe to ceiling level and start scraping away. Yes, I get terribly dirty when working inside because all of that creosote crumbles down into the house. Placing moistened newspapers on the floor helps greatly to catch the junk. To save my arms from being scraped up, I wear a black long-sleeved sweatshirt. I then put on thick gloves, those which fit over the cuff of the sweatshirt (prevents debris from going down your arms).

Once the stovepipe has been cleaned to my satisfaction, I clean up my mess with a broom and dustpan. I then get out the vacuum cleaner, making certain to place a new bag in the cleaning machine first. I begin on the inside of the wood burner and make my way out. After all is said and done, I replace the vacuum's bag again. Ta da! That's it. The heating unit it clean and there's rarely any scent coming from it during the summer months.

If you'd like more information on chimney safety and/or Chimney Sweeps, please visit Chimney Safety Institute of America at http://www.csia.org/ and Chimneys.com at http://www.chimneys.com/ Both sites offer excellent resources, tips and other such information.