How much creosote did you have this year from your liner or chimney?

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VirginiaIron

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Location
Central Virginia
This is from 2018/2019 burn season
2016 US Stove 3000
123K BTUH
21" Log max
About 3 cords, mostly oak.
6" Insulated liner, 14/15 feet high.
 

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Mine was comparable, vc encore stove and seasoned wood. I can’t choke mine down like my buddies insert. He has to clean his chimney mid winter and before burning season. He burns a lot of junk/green wood too.
 
Clean mine every fall, get a bout 1/2 gallon of soot.
Over 10 yrs my cap has got nuggets,, 12/12 pitch roof,, so got the local tree service to clean the cap.
Cost a flat of buds.
Was a volunteer FF for 10 yrs,, seen lots chimney fires,, a few like the one posted.
 
Good lord man! That's never a good sight to see.

Wasn't my house, a neighbors. He was overseas and his housekeeper was staying at the house and using the fireplace. The owner was too cheap to get the flue cleaned out unless he started to lose draft (huge flue). Even then he told the sweep not to bother with the debris in the cleanout. The door for the cleanout is outside and you can see it in some of the pictures. The cleanout box is huge ~ 3 X 4 X 4'.

Anyway here is the story.......I was getting ready to turn in about 11 PM when the housekeeper knocks on the door a little hysterical. So much she couldn't remember the address! I called the fire dept and went over to check things. There was lots of smoke inside the house but no real flames coming from the chimney, yet. The FD arrived with a small truck and a pumper truck, lots of firemen in personal vehicles. They hosed down the roof and went topside to inspect the chimney (see picture), it had a stainless cap.

So they opened up the clean out door. All there was to see was creosote. They didn't have a shovel!!! Two FD trucks and no shovel.........I found a few in the barn. They started to shovel it out and eventually reached some burning creosote (they burnt up 2-3 shovels).

A little later the fun began as they removed enough creosote so the air was able to go up the flue. There is a picture I posted with the liquid flaming creosote coming out of the chimney cap. At this point the pumper truck is keeping the roof wet, and a couple firemen went up on the roof and knocked the cap off. That's when the fire sounded like a jet engine with ~10-15 feet of flame coming out of the chimney. Globs of burning creosote raining down, would have lost the house without the pumper truck. The heat was intense enough the crack the exterior of the large brick chimney, but no flames from those or in the house. After a while it burnt itself out.

A few more pictures. The 2nd one is when they just started on the cleanout. The last one is one of the burnt shovels on top of the creosote pile.
 

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My house has a big old boiler plate Warner stove installed into the fireplace. The whole flue system is stainless from Rockford Chimney. It has a cleanout-T where the stove connects to the flue, and the whole flue is insulated up to the chimney cap.

Even though people call these old stoves smoke dragons it's pretty efficient, takes 26" logs/splits, and burns pretty clean. I only burn seasoned hardwood, and I do choke it down for overnight burns. The only place I get any creosote buildup is the screen on the chimney cap. Even though I heat all winter with wood I only have to clean the screen once or twice a year when I start to lose draft. I run a brush down the flue when I do and never get more than a 1/2 gallon of ash, no black goopy stuff in the flue at all. I recommend an insulation kit for any stainless flue installation, it really cuts down on any buildup.

I don't have pictures of the setup but I did just get my camera fixed, maybe will post some pictures. An idea of what my stove looks like
 

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I've just installed a Vozelzang wood stove and a tripled walled stainless chimney. Wife and I are pretty happy with it and it makes us feel more self sufficient.

I have heard of creosote fires but, nothing like that. Wow! Elon Musk should use it as rocket fuel. Thanks for the info.
 
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