About 10:00 p.m. last night I could hear some odd noises in my office that is alongside my chimney. Hummm, I felt the wall and it didn't seem overly warm only about the temperature of when the stove is burning. But, then I looked out the window and saw sparks floating down. Immediate thought was "this is not good"!
I rushed outside to check things out and I could see a nice red glow at the top of the chimney and some sparks coming out. I then went down to the basement to check things out and there was no great rush of air going through the barometric damper so I knew things were not all that bad.
I sealed off the air supply around the damper, the clean out door, and the draft fan on the stove. Then I watched and waited for the nice slow controlled burn to clean my chimney. It took almost an hour to completely burn out to where I couldn't see any "redness" by looking up the chimney with a mirror.
It worked, but I wouldn't recommend this method of chimney cleaning as a method to keep it clean. But, on the bright side, there wasn't that much of a build up so it didn't get that hot as to damage anything.
Yes, it scared the :censored: outta me!! I guess I will have to build some hotter fires to keep the creosote from forming.
BTW, so much for the aluminum can theory! It doesn't work!
Jim