sgt7546
ArboristSite Operative
Finally tried out the Soot-Eater today to clean my chimney and gotta say I'm impressed.
A little background, I have a Hampton Insert attached to a 30' six inch liner running up through a masonay chimney. I heat 24/7 and up until now have used a professional each year for the cleaning. This year I ordered two Soot-Eaters giving me 36' of flexible pole total and a spare of everything else. One Soot-Eater comes with 18' of poles and when you add the cost for additional poles it's close to the cost of the second whole unit.
This morning my wife and daugher went shopping giving me the perfect opportunity to work in peace. I recruited my son, the shop vac, and a cordless drill and away we went.
The directions are straight forward: There's a adapter chuck that goes in your drill, a guide to cut the head to the proper lenght, and a small allen wrench that has a point on one end and is used to disconnect the sections of rods.
We started by scooping all the ash out of the insert and insured that the insides were cold. I checked all the fire bricks for integrity and then slid the "roof" ones out of the way to access the flue. I used a rag to clean up everything that I could reach. I then attached the cleaning head to six foot of rod and slid it up into the flue so that about a foot was hanging out the front of the stove.
I stopped and cut/taped a heavy piece of plastic (provided) to the door opening and then poked a small hole for the rod to slide through.
Section by section we added until we had enough rods in place to hit the top cap. At that point I attached the drill and started cleaning on the way down. I'd go about six foot, stop detach two rods, and start again. All said and done I got about a 3 pound coffee can worth of nice light colored, flakey ash out of the chimney. This amount is on par with what I've seen each year.
I looked through the plastic and saw that it was still awful dusty in there so I left everything sit for about 15 minutes while I cleaned each section of rod and put them away. I then carefully removed the plastic (which kept all the dust in while I was cleaning) and then scooped out the ash as normal.
The rub occurred when I went to shop vac out the rest and quickly learned that I didn't have a HEPA filter in the shop vac. After about .3 seconds and a loud laugh from my son, i realized that this shop vac wasn't the right tool for this job. What I also realized at that very moment was that my wife wasn't home and that her Dyson sweeper does have a HEPA filter.
I told my son to go grab the sweeper and he gave me that knowing look that we were about to do something we shouldn't and yet he would be in no trouble for doing so....That was the fastest that kid moved in a week. I finished cleaing my chimney without further ado, and since I'm a nice guy I even cleaned the sweeper thoroughly. When my wife arrived home, I told her we had cleaned the chimney and while I was cleaning up I noticed that her sweeper needed a cleaning so I went ahead and did that too.:msp_biggrin:
A little background, I have a Hampton Insert attached to a 30' six inch liner running up through a masonay chimney. I heat 24/7 and up until now have used a professional each year for the cleaning. This year I ordered two Soot-Eaters giving me 36' of flexible pole total and a spare of everything else. One Soot-Eater comes with 18' of poles and when you add the cost for additional poles it's close to the cost of the second whole unit.
This morning my wife and daugher went shopping giving me the perfect opportunity to work in peace. I recruited my son, the shop vac, and a cordless drill and away we went.
The directions are straight forward: There's a adapter chuck that goes in your drill, a guide to cut the head to the proper lenght, and a small allen wrench that has a point on one end and is used to disconnect the sections of rods.
We started by scooping all the ash out of the insert and insured that the insides were cold. I checked all the fire bricks for integrity and then slid the "roof" ones out of the way to access the flue. I used a rag to clean up everything that I could reach. I then attached the cleaning head to six foot of rod and slid it up into the flue so that about a foot was hanging out the front of the stove.
I stopped and cut/taped a heavy piece of plastic (provided) to the door opening and then poked a small hole for the rod to slide through.
Section by section we added until we had enough rods in place to hit the top cap. At that point I attached the drill and started cleaning on the way down. I'd go about six foot, stop detach two rods, and start again. All said and done I got about a 3 pound coffee can worth of nice light colored, flakey ash out of the chimney. This amount is on par with what I've seen each year.
I looked through the plastic and saw that it was still awful dusty in there so I left everything sit for about 15 minutes while I cleaned each section of rod and put them away. I then carefully removed the plastic (which kept all the dust in while I was cleaning) and then scooped out the ash as normal.
The rub occurred when I went to shop vac out the rest and quickly learned that I didn't have a HEPA filter in the shop vac. After about .3 seconds and a loud laugh from my son, i realized that this shop vac wasn't the right tool for this job. What I also realized at that very moment was that my wife wasn't home and that her Dyson sweeper does have a HEPA filter.
I told my son to go grab the sweeper and he gave me that knowing look that we were about to do something we shouldn't and yet he would be in no trouble for doing so....That was the fastest that kid moved in a week. I finished cleaing my chimney without further ado, and since I'm a nice guy I even cleaned the sweeper thoroughly. When my wife arrived home, I told her we had cleaned the chimney and while I was cleaning up I noticed that her sweeper needed a cleaning so I went ahead and did that too.:msp_biggrin:
