Cleaning stove chimneys from soot. How to clean a chimney in a stove in a private home - the most complete guide. Folk remedies and methods for cleaning the chimney duct

If you heat your house with coal, wood or all kinds of briquettes, you probably wondered how you can clean a chimney in a private house? In this article we will analyze all the possible methods, as well as the reasons why clogging occurs?

Why does the chimney become clogged?

There are several reasons why the draft in the stove at home may disappear and it will stop functioning properly.

1. Before the heating season, the owner of the house did not clean the stove from the soot and dust that had accumulated during the warm season.
2. The vortex “fracture” has not been cleared.
3. The pipe itself in the house is not sealed; it drags in a cold stream along with street dirt.
4. There is no umbrella on the house.
5. Birds or wind-blown debris got in.

Do not forget that the most ordinary firewood leaves soot on the walls of the chimney duct that is many times greater than that from coal. That is why it is recommended to periodically “throw” a chimney sweep log into the fire, which allows you to slightly clean the pipes in the house. Firewood can leave a significant layer of soot, so don’t be too zealous with burning wood.

How do you know when your chimney needs to be cleaned?

It is easy to understand that you are about to need to clean the chimneys of stoves and fireplaces from soot if you notice that the draft has disappeared or combustible gases are entering the house. It will also clearly make it clear that enough smoke has accumulated on the walls of the chimney duct after burning the fuel; particles of wind-blown debris have appeared on the walls inside the house and in the bathrooms adjacent to the duct. This occurs due to blockage of the output channel.

How to properly clean a chimney?

In the old days, people cleaned stoves with sodium chloride or table salt - these are the so-called folk remedies. Nowadays you rarely see someone in a village cleaning “wells” in this way.
To know how to clean correctly and which method will be most effective, you need to determine the cause of the blockage, the density and size of the soot layer (or the presence of the object). It will depend on this which method will be correct and advisable to clean it?

Manual mechanical cleaning

Among the advantages of this particular cleaning method, it is worth noting that it is completely environmentally safe. Various chemicals are not used, and the only drawback of the work is that there is a danger of falling from a height while carrying out the work.

Chimney cleaning tool - rope with core and brush

Cleaning a chimney with your own hands will require you to have a certain tool. So, mechanical cleaning of chimneys can be performed using the following devices:

1. Kettlebells. Thanks to heavy weight, it breaks through large layers of soot. It is recommended to additionally attach some scratching devices to it in order to increase the efficiency of pipe cleaning.
2. Hard brushes. Additionally, take care of a long handle so that you can penetrate into remote corners.
3. Ruff. By the way, you can make it yourself. Special stainless steel devices with weights and chain are sold. Of course, using a plastic bottle will not replace a professional “device,” but you will be able to achieve even minor results.
   When using a ruff or brush, do not forget about protective equipment. Buy:
   • Respirator.
   • Glasses.
   • Gloves.
   • Safety rope.

Traditional methods of chimney cleaning

Potato peeling - a popular way to clean a chimney

People learned to clean a chimney with their own hands in ancient times, using various folk methods. You can clean the “well” yourself using:

1. Aspen firewood. Peculiarities:
   • a lot of energy is released;
   • temperature perfectly cleans brick and stainless steel chimneys.
2. Potato peelings.
   Prepare about one bucket of peelings and dry them thoroughly. Flood the oven with a high-calorie product and place dried peelings on top. Subsequently, hot steam containing starch will soften the soot, heavy briquettes will fall, and the light briquettes will evaporate away.
3. Table salt.
   Pour a couple of glasses of salt onto the fire; when combined with air, an environment is formed in which soot will not accumulate.
4. Chainsaws.
   This chainsaw cleaning method is not recommended due to its dangers. You need to climb onto the roof and insert the intake valve into the chimney and start the saw motor. It is better to attach a special exhaust pipe to stay clean and direct the soot to a specific area.

How to clean a chimney using chemicals?

First on the list we will consider the drug PHC, a fairly strong remedy.

NOTE: There is no need to unpack the packaging, it is burned entirely.
The second folk remedy. Includes composition copper sulfate, saltpeter and crushed coal. This powder needs to be sprinkled on red coals, in the process a reaction is formed due to which the soot “slides” from the walls of the chimney.

It closes the top three of chemical reagents capable of peeling off soot from the walls. Just like in the first case, it is not necessary to unpack the packaging. It must be put into the fire in this form; during combustion, active substances are released that are excellent at fighting soot growths.

Preventing chimney clogging

Pipes and chimney wells must be cleaned periodically, despite good draft. After the winter season, it is recommended to do a complete inspection of the stove using any of the methods listed above. The presented chemical preparations will allow the soot to be peeled off, after which its large fractions can be easily removed during preventative cleaning.
For prevention, you can also use salty solutions, especially if you have a solid fuel stove. It also easily allows you to get rid of a small layer of soot, which is divided into small and large particles that settle at the bottom of the chimney.

It is still very early to write off stove heating - it is still actively used by a huge number of people around the world, in cities, and in rural areas, in poor regions and in well-off and prosperous countries. Moreover, to some extent we can say that home autonomous heating structures are experiencing a “rebirth”, since both stoves and fireplaces are rapidly becoming fashionable, and few suburban construction of a modern mansion can do without them.

Getting your hands on something you want or a fireplace is not everything. Such structures are always objects of increased danger, and therefore it is extremely important to be able to operate them correctly. The owners become familiar with this fairly quickly with the procedure for firing stoves in everyday use, with the types of firewood needed for them. But what’s surprising is that a negligible number of owners know how to clean a chimney with their own hands, and even fewer have done it practically.

This situation cannot be called normal. The safe operation of stoves and fireplaces in residential premises depends to a good extent on the serviceability and correct operation of the chimney system. Forgetting about this, careless owners expose their life and health to extremely high dangers and own, And their loved ones, risk the safety of their housing and acquired property.

A little theory and history

What causes clogged chimneys?

Why do build-ups form on the pipe walls that require regular cleaning?

The first factor is due to the most banal reasons - the burning of wood itself. This is a rather complex physical and chemical process consisting of several stages. Depending on the type of stoves (fireplaces, boilers), on the location and configuration of internal channels for removing combustion products, on the design, on the type of firewood used and its quality (or other fuel), both the quantity and completeness of combustion stages (flame phase or smoldering phase), which can change from one to another several times.

- So, in smoldering mode they mostly burn T solid components - coals. In this case, the gaseous products may have too low a concentration - this happens at the beginning of the furnace, until optimal temperatures are reached, and the process of releasing combustible pyrolysis gases has not yet been fully started. These gaseous combustion products quickly condense, so combustion at this stage is accompanied by the release of thick white smoke.

— In active mode flaming combustion Pyrolysis gases become the main source of heat. As the temperature rises, the color of the flame changes (to close to bright white), and the smoke becomes almost invisible. But gradually their concentration decreases, and with one addition of firewood, the violent flame is soon replaced by a smoldering stage, for the reason that the gases have already escaped and the amount of combustible substances is becoming less and less.

Be that as it may, a lot of combustion products come out of the chimney in any case. Mainly when incomplete combustion they become soot (small carbon particles), complex organic compounds, resins, carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide). Almost all of these products are flammable, and under certain conditions can even form explosive mixtures.

At the stage of complete combustion, the organic content in the smoke decreases sharply, and the main products at the inlet become water vapor, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide gases.

• From the point of view of clogging of chimney pipes, the greatest problems are caused by smoke that is maximally saturated with incompletely burnt carbon residues (ash) and heavy resins. Therefore, it is very important to know how to choose the optimal ones - not every wood is suitable for these purposes, both in terms of its specific heat transfer and biochemical composition, that is, by the concentration of heavy resinous substances. Firewood from coniferous species d wood By the way, not only this feature makes them undesirable for use in everyday life - just look at the table to see how much they are inferior in both density and heat transfer to firewood from deciduous trees.

Wood species	Density limit wood (kg/dm³)	Average density accepted for calculations (kg/dm³)	Working volumetric calorific value of wood (kcal/dm³)
Oak	0,690-1,03	0.81	3240
Ash	0,520-0,950	0.75	3000
Rowan (tree)	0,690-0,890	0.73	2920
Apple tree	0,660-0,840	0.72	2880
Beech	0,620-0,820	0.68	2720
Acacia	0,580-0,850	0.67	2680
Elm	0,560-0,820	0.66	2640
Larch	0,470-0,560	0.66	2640
Maple	0,470-0,560	0.65	2600
Birch	0,510-0,770	0.65	2600
Pear	0,610-0,730	0.65	2600
Chestnut	0,600-0,720	0.65	2600
Cedar	0,560-0,580	0.57	2280
Pine	0,310-0,760	0.52	2080
Linden	0,440-0,800	0.51	2040
Alder	0,470-0,580	0.5	2000
Aspen	0,460-0,550	0.47	1880
Willow	0,490-0,590	0.46	1840
Spruce	0,370-0,750	0.45	1800
Willow	0,420-0,500	0.45	1800
Hazelnut	0,420-0,450	0.43	1720
Fir	0,350-0,600	0.41	1640
Poplar	0,390-0,590	0.4	1600

Resinous substances fall with smoke onto the internal surfaces of the pipe, becoming an excellent “adhesive substrate” for the adhesion of soot deposits.

• But that's not all. Regular use of freshly cut, damp or improperly stored firewood is fraught with considerable danger. High humidity wood - this is the reason for abundant condensation on the walls of the pipe, which also “fits” very well rising up tiny soot particles.

Damp firewood, and even coniferous wood - you can’t think of anything worse for a stove!

• Everything would be fine, but nowadays many home owners also consider the stove as a “universal waste disposer.” This means that a large amount of household waste goes into the firebox. It turns out that a huge amount of polymers, food waste, and other substances pass through the oven, which, when burned, produce whole “bouquets” of a variety of fats, resins, esters, and non-combustible solid particles, which very quickly lead to the lumen of the pipe becoming overgrown.

• A factor stimulating frequent chimney blockages may be poor quality work performed by the stove maker. Narrowing of the pipe channel, too many turns or incorrect angle, mortar residues on inner surface walls – etc. - all this provokes the build-up of soot waste in such places. In addition, poor thermal insulation of the chimney or ill-conceived pipe wall thickness that does not correspond to the order scheme can lead to excessively abundant formation of condensate - and this is another step towards an emergency situation.
• We cannot exclude the possibility that some birds decided to build nests in the pipe, which was not protected from above by a cap, in the summer, when the stove was not in use. In addition, random debris, such as dead leaves, can get into the pipe. From such little things, it would seem, sometimes it becomes quite difficult to grow punchable plugs.
• Soot that accumulates on the walls can, under the influence of any external reasons, peel off in a whole piece and fall down. If the fragment is large enough, it often happens that it stands askew in the cavity of the pipe, and then a full-fledged blockage quickly grows on the basis of this “jumper.”

The dangers of clogged chimney pipes

There are many reasons, but no matter which of them causes the blockage, it poses many very serious threats:

• Narrowed the gaps in the chimney sharply reduce the draft, and therefore the reverse movement of smoke is very likely - into the room, from combustion chamber. In addition to the fact that smoke itself is unpleasant, the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning increases sharply.
• Low draft leads to an increase in the volume of condensation on the internal surfaces of the pipe, that is, further clogging of the chimney can occur even faster, like an avalanche.

• A thick layer of soot is quite strong thermal insulator, which prevents the furnace channels from heating to the desired temperature. This situation always, without exception, leads to a drop in the efficiency of the heating device and to excessive consumption of the fuel used.
• Soot is unburned solid residue, but this does not mean that it is non-flammable. On the contrary, a thick layer of soot deposits under certain conditions can easily be ignited by a flame, for example, from sparks rising with the flow of gases. This leads not only to the burning of the pipe walls, but also to the vulnerability of the entire house. This situation is one of the main causes of fires in buildings equipped with stoves.

An eerie picture - a sheaf of red-hot sparks from a chimney

• A chimney overgrown with soot becomes a real fire hazard for neighboring buildings - from such an uncleaned chimney very often “fire tails” fly out - sheaves of hot solid soot particles.

Such situations are described without any exaggeration. All these troubles can occur in combination, almost simultaneously, and the consequences are sometimes the most tragic. That’s why you should never forget about regular inspections and cleanings.

How often should cleaning be carried out?

Cleaning a pipe that is heavily overgrown with soot deposits is extremely difficult task. It is best not to let this happen, but to carry out regular inspections and preventative cleanings of the chimney.

Name of preventive measure and type of equipment	Frequency of work
Preventive inspections of the condition of the chimney and smoke exhaust channels of stoves
Checking any equipment	Immediately after installation, before commissioning, or after any repair work has been carried out
Checking any equipment operating on a seasonal basis	Immediately before the start of the heating season
Checking chimney systems gas ovens and boilers	At least twice a year during the first two years of operation, then at least once a year.
Checking brick chimneys - regardless of the type of stove or boiler
Checking asbestos-cement, heat-resistant concrete or ceramic chimneys	At least once a year
Chimneys of heating and heating-cooking stoves	At least three times a year - before the start of the heating season, during it, and at the end
Cleaning of chimney channels in pipes - as deficiencies are identified during inspections, and in addition, during the period of active operation:
In heating and heating-cooking furnaces	At least once every three months
In continuous furnaces	At least once every two months
In constantly used kitchen ovens	At least once a month
In regions characterized by harsh winters with low temperatures, chimney caps are checked at least twice a month to prevent ice from freezing and causing blockages.

The fact that this needs to be done is probably already clear to everyone. But who will do this?

Where can I find a chimney sweep?

But this is a problem in our time, and a considerable one. There are not many chimney sweeps left - professionals, in the understanding that has been put into this concept for several centuries.

By the way, the need for the emergence of such specialization in the Middle Ages is directly related to massive urban fires, which from time to time shook many densely populated European cities and literally destroyed them to the ground. There is an awareness of the direct relationship between the risk of fires and the condition of chimneys, and an understanding of the importance of qualified maintenance of stoves and pipes. And already in the 17th ÷ 18th centuries, first in the German principalities, and then in other countries of Northern Europe, guilds (workshops) of specialists - chimney sweeps - appeared. And in Denmark, for example, this was even carried out by royal decree, which once again proves the importance attached to their work.

By the way, this is one of those professions that involves greatest number all sorts of superstitions, signs and prejudices, urban legends and amazing, unlikely stories.

On the one hand, chimney sweeps, always smeared from head to toe with soot, seemed to be outcasts who were even forbidden to move on the sidewalks for the “clean public.” But on the other hand, all representatives of this profession have always been distinguished by quite elegant look- a fitted short jacket with necessarily shiny buttons and a wide leather belt, and a mandatory headdress - a top hat. They say that, perhaps, the tradition of wearing a top hat came not only from the desire to look “impressive” - it’s just that this voluminous, high headdress contained a lot of equipment and accessories necessary for work. In addition, it could serve as a good shock absorber when, for example, a brick falls on your head.

The activities of chimney sweeps sometimes evoked some mystical feelings - they were often credited with being close to “evil spirits”, they frightened naughty children, they often appeared in folklore - legends, songs, ballads, etc. A characteristic feature is that very often the plot was based on the fact that under the soot-smeared mask of a chimney sweep there was hiding some kind of exile or a once-lost child of “blue blood”.

Despite all the wariness towards representatives of this profession, they were rather treated with great respect. And in many countries it is still believed that touching a chimney sweep and getting your finger dirty with soot is a sure sign of quick success.

In many cities of Central and Northern Europe, monuments to chimney sweeps have been erected. These specialists are in great demand there even now. There are even special schools, studies in which, by the way, take several years and include, in addition to narrow technological areas, many special related disciplines, including mathematics, physics, fundamentals of architecture, ecology and even economics.

True, the “weapons” of a modern chimney sweep are much richer than before. And most importantly, devices have appeared that allow telemetric inspection of pipe channels in order to quickly find the main areas of contamination and remotely control the process of their cleaning.

Where to find good specialist in our area?

• Well, firstly, you can search in regional periodicals in the sections of advertisements for the provision of services. By the way, competent specialists– chimney sweeps are highly valued and surely their names and contacts should be known locally.
• Secondly, in many cities, regional centers and etc.. Specialized companies have been created and are operating - enterprises engaged in servicing furnace and boiler equipment. Surely, one of the types of services provided is inspection, repair and cleaning of chimneys.
• And thirdly, if all this is not available in local conditions, or if there is simply no desire to involve someone from the outside, you will have to learn the basic cleaning techniques yourself.

Mechanical manual cleaning of chimneys

For a long time, the main method of servicing chimneys was their mechanical cleaning, and, therefore, the main tools of chimney sweeps were brushes, pipe cleaners, heavy cannonballs on cables, scrapers, brooms and other devices. What is characteristic is that all these instruments and technological methods work with them has not undergone any fundamental changes to this day.

Roof side cleaning

Cleaning tool

So, to clean the chimney channel from above, from the roof side, it is usually used rope(rope) on which they are attached (tied or buckled up carabiners) hard brushes for cleaning the walls from soot and a massive weighting agent - traditionally a cast iron core with an eye was used for this.

The classic chimney sweep tool is a rope with a core and a brush

The heavy load (the core) serves a dual function. Under the influence of its gravity, the brush-ruff (one or even several) moves in the chimney channel from top to bottom. But in case of severe blockages, the chimney sweep first breaks through the channel with the core, using it as a percussion instrument. Only after the passage of the canal has been achieved, brushes can be used.

The round shape of the core is very convenient in that it minimizes the risk of it jamming in any tight, soot-covered areas of the chimney. However, this is not a dogma at all, and craftsmen use other available weights when making homemade tools. The main thing is that the suspended object is well centered so that it does not get skewed anywhere.

Brushes are attached above the core, in one or two tiers.

Modern brushes can be made of plastic or have long metal bristles. (It is strictly forbidden to use metal brushes on chimneys mounted on them stainless pipes). They differ in shape: most of them are round, but you can find special brushes for the chimney rectangular section.

The brushes are equipped with rings at the top and bottom for assembling them into general design– for attaching a cable or other circuit elements – additional brushes and a core.

There are models of long brushes designed for quick and high-quality cleaning of straight cylindrical chimneys. Plastic or metal pile in such products can be arranged in a spiral.

If desired, you can find ready-made “chimney sweep kits” in specialized stores. They are equipped for a certain diameter of the chimney and include all the elements necessary for cleaning the top - a rope (cable), a weight, a set of brushes and carabiners.

If you assemble such a device yourself, then the brush can be purchased at the store. But, apparently, there are situations when buying it for some reason is not possible at the moment. If the chimney needs urgent cleaning, but there is no brush, you can make it yourself, using it as source material old plastic bottles.

Miniature	Description of the work process
	An ordinary plastic bottle is taken and cut in two so that the upper part is about 150 mm in height. Cuts are made on the walls in increments of approximately 15 mm. The length of the cuts depends on the diameter of the chimney to be cleaned. You need to orient yourself so that with the petals bent, the diameter of the resulting brush is larger size chimney by 30 - 40 mm.
	A hole is drilled in the cork (in the center) through which the rope will pass.
	After the petals are cut and bent, the plug is drilled and screwed into place, you get something like this homemade brush. It is necessary to make two such brushes - they will be located symmetrically, towards each other.
	Any massive object can be used as a load (in this case, an old bronze door knob). The weight of the load must ensure that the brush passes down through the chimney channel.
	A strong cord is securely tied to the load and then threaded through the hole in the plugs of both brushes.
	In order for the lower and upper brushes with the “pile” directed towards each other to be located at a distance from each other (from 150 to 200 mm), a glass of the appropriate height must be inserted inside this prefabricated brush. To do this, a cylinder is cut out of the remaining part of the bottle, cut lengthwise, and installed between the brushes. It is given a diameter approximately half that of the brushes, after which it is fixed with a regular office stapler. Then all that remains is to tie a fixing knot over the top brush plug - and the tool is almost ready for use!

This approach, by the way, is quite justified in country houses, where the furnace is fired less frequently, and buy professional tool or calling a specialist is simply unprofitable. And a homemade brush can cope with a one-time task no worse than a factory one. And there is no need to store it - you can always cut out a new one in a few minutes.

Video: another option for making a homemade “ruff”

How to clean

• Before starting cleaning, be sure to close all inspection hatches on the chimney. It is necessary to take some measures that will prevent the cleaned soot from falling out of the stove or fireplace onto the floor and onto interior items in the premises. For example, the hearth or combustion chamber is additionally covered with a wet cloth.
• Cleaning from the roof side must be carried out with the obligatory observance of special precautions, especially if the roof has a steep slope. Fall insurance is provided. Your feet must wear closed shoes with non-slip soles. Be sure to wear safety glasses to protect your eyes from soot or other particles. Hands are protected with gloves. It would probably be advisable to cover your face and hair, since soot is quite difficult to wash off. Such work should not be carried out in the rain or strong wind. Naturally, starting such operations in a not entirely sober state, tired, or under the influence of certain medications is strictly prohibited.

• Cleaning begins by removing the umbrella (or other pipe head). Inspect the entire visible part of the canal and, if necessary, use a scraper, broom, or other available tools to clear it of debris and deposits.
• Next, a test pass is made with the core. If you come across large deposits, then the load should help deal with them - chip them off so that they fall down.
• After the load has shown the passage of the channel to the required depth, brushes are installed above the core, and the process of cleaning the walls from soot begins. The principle is simple, the work is quite tedious and dirty. The bottom of the brush moves under the weight of the load, and up when pulled by a rope. Slowly, in small sections, the walls are cleaned from the top and to the full possible depth.
• From time to time, inspection chambers on the chimney are checked - they are cleaned of soot that has fallen from above. They will be completely cleaned upon completion of work.

Instead of a cable with a load, long flexible shafts with a brush screwed onto them or prefabricated rods are increasingly used in our time. These tools are more versatile, as they allow you to clean chimneys from below, from the side of the stove (fireplace). Let's look at them below.

Cleaning the chimney from the stove side

A tool with a load is effective only until the first serious turn - even at an angle of 45 ° the passage will be problematic, and with a rectangular one it is guaranteed to stall.

To carry out cleanings, if the design of the furnace is well thought out, there must be special vents and hatches that allow cleaning tools to be inserted into the pipe cavity without resorting to disassembling it. But here gravity no longer becomes an assistant, but quite the opposite. And in order to push the brush inside the chimney, it must be placed on a rigid and at the same time flexible support.

For small plots, up to 3 - 5 meters, you can purchase a special set in the store - one or more brushes and a flexible fiberglass rod with a handle at the end.

This device is quite multifunctional. It is used, changing only brushes of different diameters, for cleaning ventilation systems, small areas of chimneys, and sewers.

A more professional approach is a special tool in which a flexible shaft of a much larger diameter is wound onto a drum. The size of the areas to be cleaned is, of course, much larger. Markings are usually applied to the flexible shaft, which allows you to accurately monitor the depth of the brush entry into the pipe.

Finally, these can be prefabricated rods that are screwed to one another as the brush moves deeper into the chimney.

You can find similar sets on sale, equipped with the required number of rods made of fiberglass, and brushes of the required diameter - plastic and metal.

The rods are usually 1 m long each, equipped with threaded adapters for mutual mounting with each other or for installing a brush. As a rule, there are 10 such parts in a set.

The table below shows an example of cleaning an external chimney using this kit:

Miniature	Description of the work process
	A correctly assembled external chimney at its lowest point must have a plug with a condensate collector, a tap for draining it, for inspection. This is the most convenient place for cleaning.
	The plug is completely removed to open the passage into the cavity of the chimney pipe. The removed part can be immediately cleaned of dirt, fallen soot, and other foreign objects.
	Since the stainless steel pipe will be cleaned, we put the metal brush included in the kit aside - it cannot be used in this case.
	A cleaning brush is screwed onto one of the rods included in the kit.
	The same operation - against the background of an open entrance to the chimney.
	The brush is inserted into the pipe cavity and cleaning begins. Performing translational frictional movements up and down, the brush is gradually moved upward along the chimney channel. It is forbidden to make rotational (around an axis) movements, so as not to accidentally unscrew the assembled tool.
	As necessary, during the work, the total length of the central rod is increased - new rods are screwed on.
	And this miniature demonstrates the extreme flexibility of fiberglass rods. Thus, curved sections of the chimney are also amenable to a similar cleaning method (of course, up to a certain limit, but it will most likely be possible to cope with an angle of 45 - 60 degrees).

In a similar way, any areas of the chimney where it is possible to introduce a brush are cleaned. This can be done when cleaning from the roof, from inspection hatches or directly from the firebox (a typical example is a regular fireplace). Removing the brush from the pipe is done in the reverse order, with sequential dismantling of the sections.

The soot cleared from the surface of the walls is collected and removed - sometimes it is connected to this stage. After a certain pause, 30 - 40 minutes, necessary for the cleaned soot to completely settle, all inspection hatches and valves are checked. After cleaning, you may need to carry out minor repairs to the chimney - for example, repairing cracks or other defects outer surface. The pipe head must be reinstalled.

By the way, it’s easy to make a set of similar rods yourself, using polypropylene pipes. Their flexibility, of course, is not as high as that of carbon fiber, but it may be quite sufficient for certain straight chimneys.

If there is, then making such a set of rods will take literally a few minutes. You need to cut the pipe (Ø 20 mm) into equal sections (for example, 1 meter), and weld ordinary ½-inch threaded fittings along the edges of each. It is clear that the “father” is welded on one end, and the “mother” on the other.

Chemical cleaning of chimneys

Mechanical cleaning of chimneys is a very radical method that gives good results. But this event is quite difficult and very dirty. Is it possible to simplify this cleaning? It turns out that it is possible if you regularly carry out preventive work using special means chemical action.

The principle of their physical and chemical action may be different, but is aimed at common goals - removing already formed soot deposits from the inner wall of the pipe and creating conditions for the longest possible prevention of new soot deposits. Let's take a closer look at a few of these tools:

"Smoke"

Products are manufactured under this brand Russian company"Ecolais". The range is represented by three different products:

Special box "Smoke"

The principle of operation of such a cleaner in the form of a cardboard box is extremely simple. It is simply installed in the combustion chamber (in a fireplace or stove) and set on fire. The entire cleaning process takes about an hour and a half. The chemicals included in the preparation in the box actively clean soot deposits, transform the resinous components, making them brittle and self-settling. As a result, the growths either crumble down or come out, carried away by the smoke.

Cleaner “Smoke” in the form of a box

By the way, the active effect of such cleaning is not at all limited only by the time of burning the package - it lasts for two weeks, and the pronounced effect will be noticeable for at least three months.

Log "Smoke"

If the remedy described above is purely preventive, then a cleaner in the form of a log will also add an aesthetic component to the process.

More aesthetically pleasing is to use a “Smoke” log

This purifier is designed in the form of an ordinary log that can be used to heat a stove. By the way, the metal salts included in its chemical composition give a very interesting visual effect - a beautiful turquoise flame.

Otherwise, the principle of operation remains the same.

Cleaner for pellet stoves and boilers “Smoke”

Manufacturers have also provided a cleaner in the form of granules, which helps to cope with the problems of contamination of the internal channels and chimneys of pellet boilers and stoves. This type of fuel has its own specific characteristics, therefore, a special approach is needed to prevent such equipment.

This cleaning agent has been given the characteristic appearance of ordinary ones - this makes it easier to mix with the main fuel. But, by the way, you can also use it in conventional wood-burning stoves.

Typically cleaning is carried out once every two months. For a flight boiler, you need to mix 10 kilograms of cleaner with a ton of natural pellets. If a regular stove is being cleaned, then it will be enough to add a kilogram of granules daily, for 5 days, to the firewood during one of the fireboxes.

Video: cleaning chimneys with Dymovoy brand products

Production of the companyHANSA

Technologists from the West German company HANSA, when developing preventative agents for heating devices, placed the main emphasis on the fight against creosote - resinous substances that, when interacting with water vapor, create that very sticky base on which soot actively settles.

The substances included in the preparations act in two ways. The first are aimed at active catalysis, so that carbon particles burn as completely as possible, leaving virtually no soot. Other substances react with creosote when exposed to high temperatures. At the same time, the resinous structure loses moisture, and therefore its viscosity. The remaining layer becomes fragile, brittle, it begins to crumble and almost completely burns in the flame of the hearth.

You can find several on sale types of similar cleaners that in Russia they are better known under the brand “Chimney Sweep”.

• The top miniature shows the “Chimney Sweep” product, made in the form of a loose mixture. The kit includes a measuring cup with which the dosage is made. The product is used both for cleaning and for preventive purposes, adding, for example, 1 - 2 measuring cups for every 4 - 5 fires of the stove or fireplace. This approach allows you to be sure that soot will not accumulate in the chimney.
• Below is the same product, but already dosed in sachets. The use is no different from the method described above.
• The middle miniature shows a Chimney Sweeper log in a package. In this form, it is placed in a heated combustion chamber, ignited and left until completely burned out. To keep chimneys constantly clean, it is recommended to carry out such preventive maintenance approximately once a month.

Chimney Sweep cleaners are suitable for all types of stoves and chimneys. What is especially important is that they do an excellent job of cleaning the most difficult pipes in this regard - brick, which often have an uneven porous wall surface.

« Kominichek"

This is also a very well-known and widely popular Czech-made chimney cleaning product among Russians.

Prepackaged sachets of Kominichek

It is an istallic mixture packaged in sachets of 14 grams. Usually one such bag is designed for a kilogram of dry firewood. Chemical reagents convert soot deposits deposited on the pipe walls into a substance that burns even at a not very high temperature. This can be attributed to the advantages of this drug. Disadvantages - its “power” is not enough if the chimney is very neglected and the soot layer on the walls already exceeds 2 mm. And one more limitation - processing with Kominichek, due to the peculiarities of its chemical composition and, as a result, odor, can only be carried out with the combustion chamber door tightly closed. Thus, this cleaner cannot be used in fireplaces with an open hearth.

There are many other means - there is plenty to choose from

There are many other cleaners, soot and tar converters, etc., both domestic and foreign. You can sample some of them and choose best option for myself - both in terms of efficiency, ease of use, and cost.

Video: one of the chemical cleaning products - “The Cheerful Chimney Sweep”

Folk remedies for cleaning chimneys

There are many ways in which our ancestors, with varying degrees of success, fought the phenomenon of chimneys becoming overgrown with soot. Surely, some of these folk methods were taken into account when creating modern chemical cleaners.

Let's remember a few folk "recipes":

• Regular boiling water can be of great help in breaking through very strong old sooty clogs. Several liters of very hot water are poured into the pipe from above immediately before starting to light the stove.

Boiling water will soften it somewhat T hard growths, and the rising hot gaseous combustion products will destroy them, causing the soot to fly out in pieces along with the smoke.

• One of the most simple ways is to add a small amount of ordinary table salt to the firewood. Sodium chloride vapors appear to have a destructive effect on viscous soot deposits.

True, this method is applicable only as a preventive measure. It will not help to cope with old, even small soot growths.

• Unexpectedly, naphthalene also helps in this matter. A standard tablet of this substance, thrown into a melted hearth, becomes an excellent preventive and cleansing agent. The soot begins to flake off and come out along with the smoke.

The method is proven, but, alas, not without its drawbacks. And the main one is that mothballs have a very persistent smell, which is very difficult to get rid of, and which is not pleasant to everyone.

• Don't throw away potato peelings - they're very effective remedy from the accumulation of soot in the chimney. From time to time it is useful to pour peelings or even just finely chopped raw potatoes into a fully heated oven.

An old folk method - burning potato peelings in an oven

Rising vapors with a high starch content soften the structure of sooty growths. Some of them will fall off. And the remaining ones will be much easier to clean mechanically.

• For a long time, a mixture of coal, saltpeter and “blue stone” - copper sulfate - has been actively used to clean chimneys. The composition is made in proportions:

- copper sulfate - 5 parts;

- powdered coal (preferably coke) - 2 parts;

- saltpeter - 7 parts.

You don’t need a lot of this mixture at all - about 20 grams per hundred kilograms of firewood is enough. The composition is poured into the oven preheated to the optimal setting, then the firebox door is closed very tightly. Carry out similar cleanings in the hearths open type forbidden.

• Finally, one of the most famous cleaning methods is the use of special firewood for this purpose. Thus, it was noticed that the fumes released during the combustion of aspen or alder contribute to the detachment of soot deposits from the walls of the chimney, and very high, but short-term heat allows the residues to escape with smoke or burn in the firebox.

Alder firewood - usually stands out against the general background with bright colors on the cut

It is interesting that neither alder nor aspen firewood can in any way be considered a high-quality type of fuel for heating rooms, or the heat transfer from them is small. But having a supply of such wood is still very useful. Occasionally, for preventive purposes, you can finish firing the stove by finally adding a few kilograms of alder or aspen into it. However, it is necessary to ensure that sparks, which often fly out of the chimney during such a procedure, do not cause a fire in neighboring buildings.

So, there are a lot of means for prevention and regular cleaning of the chimney. Maintaining the stove in good and safe condition is the direct responsibility of every homeowner. And it’s up to him to decide whether to call a chimney sweep or do everything himself. The main thing is not to forget to do this, to elevate such events to the rank of priority. And, of course, strictly follow the recommendations for the correct operation of stoves - then you will not have to address cleaning issues so often.

Good and regular cleaning of the chimney is necessary even when your stove comes from expensive and modern modular systems. But even with very careful and careful operation, soot still settles on the walls of the pipes, and if you also heat it with not the best wood, then its volume may surprise you. Soot collects even on the smoothest surface, and it needs to be cleaned off - unless, of course, you want your sauna to burn down. But the time is already behind us when only a professional chimney sweep could clean the chimney. Today, in fact, there is no such profession - instead, in some schools they train only “cleaners”, although they cannot boast of special skills. True, occasionally you can find advertisements for the private services of a real chimney sweep. And this makes sense - a professional will not only clean your chimney efficiently, but will also check it itself technical condition chimney. Therefore, if your chimney has bends, it was not made by you and you do not really understand all these subtleties - hire a specialist, it will be safer for your health and life. But if construction is a fairly close topic and the chimney is the work of non-visiting migrant workers, and its design is quite simple - feel free to pick up a brush!

Why does the chimney get clogged in the first place?

Let's take a closer look at this process - and much will immediately become clearer. Thus, when wood burns, smoke is produced and gas is released. White smoke comes from water vapor from wood, and black smoke comes from coal, soot and creosote from the same wood. It is from black smoke that a deposit forms on the inner surface of the pipe, and the rougher it is, the more soot will settle on it.

The result: it is more difficult for smoke to pass through, thrust decreases, and fuel does not burn completely. In the best case, the chimney will deteriorate over time, in the worst case, the bathhouse itself will burn out.

How can you get rid of accumulated soot?

Sometimes, rather than hiring a non-professional, it’s much easier and safer to remove soot from your own bathhouse yourself - using brushes, modern chemicals for cleaning chimneys and even “old-fashioned” methods, and without necessarily climbing onto the roof!

Let's look at the most popular options for cleaning soot from a chimney and how to do it.

Using a special brush - a simple and proven method

Of all modern mechanical and chemical means, a brush is the simplest and safest. It is only important to choose one that is suitable for your chimney - both in diameter and in length, so that you do not worry about how to clean your chimney of soot along its entire height.

Particularly good is a nylon brush with stiff bristles, which is easy to clean a chimney of any material. Nylon pile is flexible and adapts well to any pipe shape, while simultaneously coping with the most stubborn plaque. But at the same time it does not scratch or damage its inner surface.

The most difficult thing is to choose a good brush for chimney bends. This is where the soot settles, and it is not so easy to get it out. Nylon bristles are most suitable for this purpose - they will easily penetrate into the most hard to reach places, while hard brushes will simply scratch the folds. And more scratches - less smoothness - more soot clings.

It is also important what kind of handle the brush has - it must have sufficient flexibility so that it can fit into the most invisible nooks and crannies and at the same time be easy to control your movements.

Potato peeling - the old-fashioned method

Here's how to clean a chimney in this way: throw a bucket or half a bucket of fresh potato peelings into a well-heated stove - that's how much will fit in it. During their burning, starch will be released, and it decomposes the soot. Within two to three days it will almost completely fall off the walls of the chimney and partially fall out. After this, tie a brush made of twigs to the brick and clean the top of the chimney in the classic way - it will be easy!

Aspen wood - with fire from the chimney

Cleaning a chimney with aspen wood is as old as the hills. But this method cannot be called safe - let's figure it out.

We put aspen wood in the stove and light it well. They burn well and produce a very high temperature. At this time, all doors and valves of the stove should be open, and do not forget to add more firewood. The result is that the soot itself lights up and the stove begins to make a loud noise. If you go outside at this moment, you will see fire pouring from the chimney on the roof of your bathhouse! And the surrounding area will quickly become covered with large white flakes. But the chimney will be cleaned, and cleaned well. If only it can withstand this test - after all, not every chimney is designed for 1100 ° C, and it is at this mark that soot will burn in it.

Aluminum cans - unusual, but effective

The cans need to be burned once in ten fires - this is enough, and very little soot will be collected. The only condition: the fire must be made hot, with a large amount of hard coal - so that the cans actually burn, and do not lie on the wood and change color. Normally, one can should burn out in five minutes.

Hose - whatever is at hand

Some bathhouse attendants don’t bother themselves much with newfangled methods and clean the chimney with a regular watering hose. The whole procedure looks like this:

• Remove the glass from the bottom of the chimney.
• We insert a hose from below (preferably from above), preferably a hard one.
• A few cleaning movements - all the soot is already at the bottom.

You can additionally attach a cut-up bottle or brush to the end of the same hose - and you will see how easy it is to clean the chimney effectively and cost-effectively!

Chemical cleaning is unpopular and unpleasant

Chemical cleaning of chimneys is more of a preventative measure than a real cleaning. The bottom line is that after this the soot will fall off in places, but you will still have to use an additional brush. Plus, the smell in the bathhouse can last for several days. Therefore, if potato peelings are not available to you, you can buy some “Komichek” or “Log-chimney sweeper”.

How to properly clean a chimney with a brush?

First of all, before cleaning the furniture in the bathhouse, be sure to cover it. plastic film, and cover the windows with thick fabric. Protect yourself from soot: wear gloves, safety glasses and preferably a respirator. Next is this: in most models of stoves and chimneys, manufacturers install special inspection doors to make cleaning easier and more convenient. Pay attention - do you have these?

So, here's how you can clean your chimney well:

• Step 1. We wait until the stove has completely cooled down and remove any remaining firewood or any other flammable materials from it.
• Step 2. Remove the damper at the entrance to the chimney.
• Step 3. Holding the brush firmly by the handle, insert it into the chimney hole.
• Step 4. Move the brush in the most different directions, trying not to miss any hard-to-reach places.
• Step 5. Move the brush further up, and now clean the most high places pipes
• Step 6. Remove the accumulated soot.
• Step 7. Close the chimney and rinse the brush with regular warm water.

It is necessary to clean not only soot from the chimney, but also cobwebs, accidentally flying debris and sometimes even bird nests. Even if you cleaned the pipe well, and then didn’t use the sauna at all for a month or two of summer, still pick up the brush.

The fact is that during this time the birds could actually build a nest in the chimney, and the small inhabitants of the corners could weave new webs. And if you carelessly light the stove, it will all burn, and it burns with a special soot and unpleasant smell, and even caustic soot, which will instantly stick to the walls and will “delight” you with a suffocating aroma all winter. Do you need it?...

How to make a good brush with your own hands?

Here's how to make a great budget chimney brush:

• Step 1. We purchase the following from the market: a synthetic round broom, a steel cable along the length of the entire chimney, clamps, 2 ears and a pin with 8 mm thread and washers of different diameters.
• Step 2. Unbend the pile into different sides– it is hard and elastic, so make an effort. The result will be something like a bouquet. If it doesn’t work, put it in boiling water.
• Step 3. Take a hairpin and screw the ear - from one end, after which we put on the washer and insert it into the hole at the bottom of the brush, then the washer again. The diameter of them just fits the holes of the broom.
• Step 4. Press down on the base from above and carefully screw on the second fastener. The more you twist, the more the bristles of the brush will diverge to the sides.
• Step 5. Turn the brush over, see the eye of the fastening and tighten it to the desired size.
• Step 6. We fasten the cable to the brush using a bracket, measure the chimney opening and cut the fibers exactly to the size of the chimney pipe. If it turns out to be less, it won’t be cleaned. And for accuracy, first try on and cut out a template from cardboard.
• Step 7. We attach the load - this can be a regular weight from 2 kg.

That's all! You can put up a ladder and go clear the chimney of soot. Good luck!

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A soot fire in a chimney is a daily nightmare for the inhabitants of any home with flaming heating and cooking appliances. Even if the fire can be extinguished before the stove (boiler) pipe burns out and there is no fire in the house, the costs of eliminating the accident will be prohibitively high, and the house will be left without heating and cooking facilities in the cold. However, regular cleaning of the chimney from deposits in it is necessary not only for fire safety: the efficiency and durability (lifetime before overhaul) of a stove or boiler are maintained only if the draft in the chimney corresponds to the nominal one; any blockage reduces the clearance of the chimney and, accordingly, the chimney draft.

Why get into the mud?

For the reasons stated chimney cleaning is an absolutely necessary planned technological operation during the operation of heating and cooking appliances that burn fuel, and the profession of a chimney sweep remains in demand in the most developed countries in an age when humanity is mastering quantum Information Systems and is preparing for interstellar flights. Moreover, given the current state of affairs with energy resources in the world, the advantages of individual stove heating over centralized heating significantly outweigh its disadvantages.

But, the reader may object, when my sink siphon gets clogged, I call a plumber. And why do I need to know anything about such a much dirtier and unhealthy activity as cleaning chimneys from soot? Let the chimney sweeps do this, and I’ll pay within reasonable limits.

Firstly, what is a “reasonable limit” in this case? Chimney sweep services in the Russian Federation are considered perhaps the cheapest in the world. But even in Russia, cleaning a chimney from soot costs at least 10,000 rubles. This is if there is a chimney sweep in this locality or in its immediate vicinity. For calling him out, you will have to pay extra for round trip travel and accommodation at the place of work. What if the road to the house with the stove is impassable for ordinary vehicles in winter?

Secondly, if there is a leak from the kitchen sink siphon or an overflow from the toilet, then there is simply no time to wait for a plumber - here the rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves; the degree of urgency if there are signs of the need for unscheduled/emergency chimney cleaning is even higher. Therefore, even if your money is enough to pay a chimney sweep + 200% bonus, you still need to know how to clean the chimney yourself, at least quickly, so that the immediate threat passes.

Thirdly, cleaning the chimney by any method other than chemical gentle (preventive) does not leave a mark on its resource. At the same time, the profession of a chimney sweep is highly paid, but harmful, dirty and dangerous, and there is little competition in it. Really highly qualified professionals prefer to do easier scheduled preventive cleaning under subscription service contracts, and if you need to clean a chimney in a private house urgently and/or in the outback, there is a high risk of running into a money-hungry klutz, and if your chimney is a modern modular sandwich or ceramic/glass, improper cleaning can damage it once and for all.

Reliable information about chimney cleaning is much less widespread than about plumbing - after all, just 10 years ago, individual stove heating was considered a relic of the past doomed to extinction. If a plumber starts connecting propylene pipes by taping them together, a glamorous, pampered diva will drive him out. But if a chimney sweep puts a steel brush on a solid rod into a sandwich chimney with blind kinks, then even a smart businessman may decide that this is the right thing to do. And a day, week or month after the “specialist” receives his bribe and leaves, the consequences will be severe, even catastrophic. If there is a need to clean a stove/boiler pipe, you need a certain minimum of knowledge in this area to supervise the work of a specialist. Therefore, even if the very mention of cleaning a chimney causes you physiological disgust, but you use stove or boiler heating, you you definitely need to know:

• Why and how the chimney lumen becomes covered with deposits.
• How can you determine by external signs whether a chimney needs cleaning and, if so, in what order (see below)?
• What tools and methods are used to clean chimneys of different types, depending on the nature and properties of deposits in them?
• How to clean a chimney with your own hands if necessary, using improvised means?
• Are there ways to guarantee avoiding urgent chimney cleaning during the heating season and, if so, which ones?

Is it just soot?

Cleaning a chimney from black soot, as the ignorant imagine it, is quite simple, and if the pipe is brick, then even serious negative consequences You can’t expect anything from manual cleaning using improvised means. But, firstly, not only black soot is deposited in chimneys, and in different ways. Secondly, modern chimneys According to their properties, they are by no means brick.

In brick and, when fired with high-quality fuel (deciduous or pine firewood, properly seasoned in a woodshed), in simple steel chimneys, the so-called. plump soot (item 1 in the figure), which is almost pure amorphous carbon. As a rule, plump soot completely covers the lumen of the pipe before it cokes (sinters; cemented with bituminous substances, mainly creosote). Puffy soot ignites most easily, but external signs of its influence on traction (see below) appear early and clear. Cleaning a chimney from plump soot or preventing its deposition using any of the methods described below does not present any technical difficulties.

Gray soot (item 2) is typical for conventional steel chimneys of stoves/boilers operating on coal or random wood fuel. Coking of gray soot begins when its layer reaches approx. 2 mm and then spreads to the entire plaque. External signs of a chimney being overgrown with gray soot are weakly expressed and develop slowly. The combustion of gray soot is a rare phenomenon, but it necessarily entails the most severe consequences: part of the amorphous carbon is modified to graphite during the bituminization process, and the burning gray soot develops a temperature of over 1600 degrees. Manually cleaning a chimney from gray soot is not always possible or is very labor-intensive, so in this case, it is of paramount importance preventive actions against soot deposition.

Note: pure graphite burns at 2500 degrees. According to the recollections of the helicopter pilots who extinguished the Chernobyl reactor, its interior shone dazzlingly, like the Sun.

Light gray soot in sandwich chimneys (item 3) cokes instantly at the moment of deposition. A modular sandwich chimney, at the moment of starting the device that is connected to it, experiences thermal shock: the cold inner surface of the thin-walled steel pipe in thermal insulation it warms up to temperature very quickly flue gases. From the point of view of the energy efficiency of the device, this is good: almost no fuel is wasted to accelerate the stove/boiler to its rated thermal power. But the first to settle on the pipe wall is a creosote film, which immediately grabs unburned fuel particles. Further, if the chimney is not prevented from soot falling out, its clearance quickly becomes overgrown with ordinary gray soot. Only an experienced professional chimney sweep can remove a coating of light gray soot without damaging the chimney, alternately using installations for hydraulic and mechanized rotary (rotary) cleaning.

Oily (white) soot, pos. 4, is formed in the chimneys of devices intended for cooking over an open fire: barbecues, barbecues, etc. In addition, in sandwich chimneys of household fireplaces, a real coal-wood fireplace, thanks to the always open firebox, perfectly cleans the room of dust. Where does the fat come from? From dust drawn into the firebox. A significant proportion of house dust consists of dried grease from the inhabitants of the home, kitchen fumes and splashes. Oily soot manifests itself just as clearly and quickly as plump soot, and can be easily cleaned off with a brush or ruff both from above and below. Preventive measures They are quite effective against greasy soot and, if used correctly, urgent chimney cleaning will never be necessary. But, if there is greasy soot in the chimney, you should not hesitate to remove it under any circumstances - greasy soot catches fire very easily; True, it burns weakly and the chimney can always be extinguished in time. But a complete replacement is expensive modular system after that it is inevitable.

About sandwich systems...

The advantages of sandwich chimneys do not end with their efficiency, but it is almost never possible to clean a clogged sandwich without compromising its service life. The fact is that customers, tempted by the ease of installation of sandwich pipes, for the sake of cheapness, ask to make a chimney (or make it themselves) with inclined sections and blind corners (kinks). Even with manual cleaning (see below), the brush gets through them, but it scratches the smooth stainless steel so much that the deposition of soot on the fractures becomes chronic, to the point that the chimney elbows have to be replaced at the height of the season.

A properly modular sandwich chimney is assembled from horizontal (hogs) and vertical (otters) bends connected by tees with cleaning and inspection hatches, see figure:

In this case, even if solid light gray soot is detected in the chimney, after hydrotreatment it is cleaned with a gentle rotary brush (see below) and its service life is practically not reduced. If chemical prevention and inspection of the chimney is carried out in a timely manner, then the “shock” chemical cleaning(see below) works. Then the remaining soot can be raked out into the tees and removed by the owner himself without calling a specialist. In general, additional the costs of “extra” elbows and tees during operation are paid off by savings on cleaning and peace of mind.

Note: what is in fig. designated as otters, according to the rules of technical terminology - risers. In the stove industry, otter is a widening of the part of the chimney protruding above the roof, which improves the wind flow around it, the draft of the chimney and partly prevents the joint between the pipe and the pipe from getting stuck. roofing pie. But there are already plenty of risers in everyday life - water supply, sewerage, gas - so it would not be a great sin to call the vertical modules of a sandwich chimney otters.

When to call a pro

It is recommended to clean the sandwich chimney yourself only using chemical (non-contact) methods, but they are effective if the soot layer is no thicker than 2 mm. Otherwise, you need to call a chimney sweep, but first show them a photo of the soot in the chimney and ask: how will you clean it?

Puffy soot and gray in a not too thick layer, i.e. not completely coked, the so-called with a gentle brush of rapid rotation, on the left in the figure:

Its flexible shaft (see below) can be driven by a drill or hammer drill with the blow turned off. Next, if the gentle brush fails, use a hydraulic unit to remove soot and repeat the passage with the gentle brush; this is already extra. payment. There is soot left - more. payment, and the master prepares the unit for mechanized rotary cleaning with hard brushes (the rest are in the figure). A “handy” drive is not suitable for them, because The rotation speed must be kept stable regardless of the load on the brush. The brush frequency and type are chosen by the master depending on the type, structure of the chimney and the nature of its contamination. A hard rotary brush will remove everything, but if the sandwich was cleaned with this, a conscientious specialist warns: “Don’t forget to replace the chimney in the summer. I can’t guarantee whether this next season will last.”

...and about ceramic chimneys

Glass chimneys and solid ceramic ones, made by slip casting, are very expensive, but in terms of efficiency and overall performance qualities they surpass the most best sandwich. If regular chemical prophylaxis is carried out, the soot in them either does not fall out at all, and if it does fall out, it holds on very weakly. But such chimneys are fragile, and damaged ones quickly become overgrown with plump soot. Therefore, if it comes to mechanical cleaning of a ceramic/glass chimney, you need to use only and only a special tool, see below.

When should you clean?

The chimney is cleaned next. cases:

1. Planned annually - before the start and after the end of the heating season with the furnace/boiler stopped;
2. Scheduled preventive maintenance - during the use of the heating and cooking device without stopping it;
3. Unscheduled without shutdown - if there are initial signs of soot deposition and if, based on the results of the chimney inspection, the thickness of its layer is established to be up to 2 mm;
4. Urgent with shutdown - based on signs of heavy soot deposits and a layer thickness of more than 2 mm.

Annual scheduled cleanings must be carried out mechanically (see below). During the autumn, the readiness of the device for the heating season is checked, even if it was not used in the summer: a bird's nest, a ball of wintering snakes, or just random debris may be found in the pipe. In no case should you skip the spring one: over the summer, the winter soot in it from the heat and precipitation will become so coked that the autumn cleaning will turn from a simple inspection into a complex, expensive procedure.

Smoke or flame?

It is usually advised to determine the need to clean the chimney while the stove/boiler is moving by looking at the smoke from the chimney: if, they say, it is white, curly, everything is OK. It has turned grey, thickened, pulled down - it needs to be cleaned. This is an unreliable sign: the type of smoke from the chimney is highly dependent on weather conditions; You know that they use it to predict the weather, right?

The more reliable condition of the chimney is determined by the type of flame in the firebox. Fuel must be loaded into it according to the norm; the wood should flare up, i.e. be completely engulfed in flames and charred on the outside. If the stove/boiler is new, correctly designed, built and heated correctly, then after they are accelerated (brought up to design power by test fireboxes), the cores of the flames will become light yellow, and the tongues themselves will stretch straight up (on the left in the figure). This means that the device has become stable: a layer of soot with a high content of graphite up to 0.5 mm thick has been deposited in its chimney. Such plaque is harmless, and in a brick chimney it is useful, because... makes its walls smoother and increases traction.

Over time, the cores of the tongues will turn straw-yellow and the flames will begin to dance (center in the picture). This is a sign that it’s time to start chemical prevention (see below) and carry it out until the flame stretches straight up, remaining straw-yellow at the core. If this does not happen after 2-4 fires, you need to burn the aspen or log for impact dry cleaning. It didn’t help, the flame died down, turned red at the top and beats in the firebox; especially if it splashes onto the forehead of the stove, on the right in Fig. – urgent mechanical cleaning of the chimney is required and the appliance should be stopped.

Note: You can use the smoke to determine the condition of the chimney if the flame does not give a definite answer; e.g. when changing the type of fuel. Provided that you remember (or take a good quality photograph) what the smoke was like from the chimney of a new or thoroughly cleaned stove in different weather conditions. If during the same period it darkens and thickens, you need to trim the chimney and, if necessary, clean it.

Chimney cleaning products

Chemical and mechanical means for cleaning the chimney have already been mentioned above; This is where their selection is limited. “Anti-soot chemistry” is applicable to chimneys that have not been neglected (in terms of maintenance) with a soot coating no thicker than approx. 2 mm; in other cases you have to use mechanics

Anti-soot chemistry

Chemical products are intended for use by the owners themselves without the involvement of specialists and cope with a thin coating of any soot of any kind. “Chemistry for soot” cleans not only the chimney, but also the entire smoke system. For devices with complex thermal circuits (which are the most economical) this is more than relevant. Prevention against soot loss is also possible only with chemical means. In addition, “dry cleaning” of the stove is the cleanest in the literal sense: a relatively small amount of cleaned soot falls into the firebox, from where it can be removed without dirtying the room; Most of the soot burns and flies out into the chimney.

The action of chemical soot removal products is based on the release of catalysts into the flue gases, provoking the combustion of its bituminous components. Typical composition of “soot chemistry”:

• Amorphous silicon (inhibits, i.e. suppresses the combustion of carbon).
• Wood sawdust (emit volatile flammable substances that initiate the ignition of bitumen).
• Urea (urea) plays the role of nitrate: when heated, it releases oxygen. Nitrate itself (any kind) cannot be used in this composition - it can detonate in contact with carbon and in the presence of catalysts!
• Ammonium and sodium sulfates provide catalyst ions.
• Coal wax - spreading in a layer of soot, ensures uniform combustion.

Note: Urea is also, in principle, an explosive substance. In the Bond film "All World is Not Enough" not enough"), under the Western name "urea", the terrorist blows up MI6. But they used some kind of Hollywood-style fantastic detonator, but in general it is extremely difficult to make urea detonate even in special installations.

Creosote and other bituminous substances are enough for even the plumpest soot. After they burn out, non-sticky amorphous carbon and graphite remain, which crumble down. This leads to an important drawback of chemical soot removers: the chimney must be designed for elevated temperatures. If the upper part of the pipe is built on ordinary cement mortar or made of asbestos-cement pipe, then the use of chemical soot cleaners can render it completely unusable. And if you try to “chemically” remove a thick coating of plump or greasy soot, then the likelihood of it catching fire is very high.

Chemical soot removers are available in the form of powder (left in the figure), briquettes and logs (center and right):

Powders are used for prevention; the ratio of ingredients in them is different than in compressed formulations. The powder is sprinkled on the logs loaded into the firebox in layers before kindling according to the instructions included with the package. The device starts up and operates in normal mode; It is possible to regulate combustion by air supply and draft using a damper. If you buy a powder recommended for the type of fuel you use, then you will only need scheduled seasonal chimney cleanings listed above.

A briquette and a log for cleaning a chimney from soot differ only in shape and are used for “impact” unscheduled chemical cleaning. They are used differently, because They act only on hot soot: standard fuel is loaded into the firebox and they wait until it burns out, but does not completely go out. Then they throw a cleaning log into the firebox, close its door and completely open the vent with the damper. The device is kept “in the air” for 2-3 hours (more precisely, according to the instructions), i.e. the stove/boiler gets cold and this fuel load does not provide useful heat.

Note: how to use chemical soot removers, see the video:

Video: chemical cleaning of the chimney

and user reviews about them follow. video:

Village chemistry

Our ancestors discovered chemical prevention and removal of soot from chimneys long before they appeared on the market as new chemical technologies. Folk remedies for preventing soot deposits in the chimney and cleaning it from it are as follows:

1. Potato peels - for prevention against soot, similar to chemical powder;
2. Table salt - the same;
3. Aspen firewood – for “impact” cleaning of small soot deposits.

Potato peelings are dried until brittle before being added to fuel. Catalysts for the burnout of bitumen soot are organic products joint pyrolysis of starch and solanine alkaloid; Solanine is contained in the peel, sprout and green parts of the tubers, which is why they are all poisonous. The tops of potatoes and other nightshades (for example, tomatoes) contain even more solanine, but there is no starch and they are not suitable for preventing soot. Also unsuitable are products containing only starch, for example, rice, and cleaning root vegetables without alkaloids containing sugar (beets, turnips, etc.) will only aggravate soot deposition. In principle, peeling the root crops of yams, sweet potatoes and taro would work against soot, but they don’t grow here, and where they grow, there is no problem with cleaning chimneys due to the lack of need for seasonal heating.

Note: organic catalysts for bitumen combustion are more active than mineral ones, therefore removing a lot of plump and greasy soot with potatoes is even more dangerous than with “chemicals”.

During thermal decomposition, table salt releases sodium ions - catalysts, but in the singular without additional additives they act weaker. But you can try to loosen thick, plump and greasy soot with salt without stopping the furnace: if it doesn’t work, then nothing bad will happen. Just don’t expect an immediate effect - soot starts falling into the firebox 1-3 days after burning salted wood.

Aspen firewood (see figure on the right) to remove soot is used at room dryness, i.e. After the wood burning, they must be kept for at least a month in a dry, heated room. Aspen fuel is low-calorie, but during combustion it develops a high temperature, up to 1200 degrees, which is why it is used for acceleration brick kilns. The aspen firebox acts on soot (including thick, plump and greasy) purely thermally: the bitumen is heated to the point of fluidity and the soot falls off. Firing aspen from soot gives an immediately visible effect, but It is necessary to load aspen firewood into the stove no more than half of the norm (by weight), otherwise the structure of the stove may not withstand overheating.

Note: For “rustic” methods of preventing soot in the chimney and removing it from there, see the video:

Video: traditional methods for removing soot

Mechanical cleaning products

Mechanical cleaning of the chimney is carried out, firstly, in the order of its routine inspection and maintenance in the fall and spring. Secondly, if urgent cleaning is necessary during the heating season with the furnace/boiler stopped, because... Mechanical cleaning while the device is running is not possible. Mechanical cleaning is labor-intensive; A lot of dirt gets into the room. It is impossible to clean the stove/boiler mechanically at the same time as the chimney. Mechanical prevention of soot is also impossible: mechanical cleaning of the chimney is carried out only after it has been contaminated. When cleaning by mechanical means The likelihood of damage to the chimney is not small. But by mechanical means it is possible to remove the oldest soot, even if it has completely blocked the lumen of the pipe, without the risk of causing it to catch fire and/or overheating of the device.

Note: machine cleaning of the chimney (briefly described above) is the domain of professionals, because keep at home in reserve just in case, resp. installation is pointless. If an ordinary householder dares to clean the chimney himself, he will have to do it manually.

Top or bottom?

Mechanical devices are used to clean the chimney from above (from the roof) or from below (from the furnace/boiler firebox). Top cleaning may not allow dirt into the room at all, because... most of it is removed out, but is traumatic and is possible only with favorable conditions weather conditions. As a rule, the chimney is cleaned from above in the order of autumn-spring inspection. After the bottom cleaning, the room will be full of soot, but climbing to the roof is not necessary. Therefore, urgent/emergency winter cleaning of the chimney is carried out from below and the device is stopped. In both cases, the working body of a manual cleaning tool will be a brush or brush.

Ruffs...

Cleaning the chimney with a brush is the most accurate; It is strongly recommended to clean sandwich chimneys manually only with a brush. But cleaning with a brush is also the most labor-intensive: on average, routine cleaning of a 4 m long pipe takes 40 minutes, and urgent cleaning takes more than an hour. It is unlikely that it will be possible to remove light gray and old gray soot with a brush.

The chimney is cleaned with a brush most often without rotation; in this case, the working element is fixed on a long flexible cable in a slippery shell (on the left in the figure). Clean the pipe with a brush, screwing it up and down; The cleared soot is scattered wherever necessary. The spines (bristles) of the brush can be steel or plastic. A steel brush cleans both plump and greasy soot, but scratches the pipe. A plastic brush gets stuck in greasy soot or slides on it, but it can be used to clean not only sandwiches, but also cast ceramics and glass. However, now chimney brushes with spines made of propylene fishing line for brush cutters are increasingly coming into use; they combine the advantages of steel and plastic brushes without their disadvantages.

Note: a brush with spines made of hard, inflexible thick steel wire (see figure on the right), the so-called. garnish, is used in exceptional cases for cleaning thick-walled steel chimneys, but it scratches them so much that then the deposition of soot accelerates significantly.

A brush-brush (item A in the previous figure) with 2-3 turns is also called a single or fine-cleaning brush: with it alone you can remove only thin, fresh, plump soot, and from the others it only scoops out residues that have been loosened and/or softened by chemical or hydrocleaning. The cleaning brush does not fit through the fractures of the chimney - there are few spines, they are crushed and do not hold the rod, which rests on the fracture.

A one-and-a-half-turn brush with 4-5 turns (pos. B) is most commonly used, because It takes plump, greasy and not old gray soot and passes through the cracks at least 120 degrees. However, even with scheduled seasonal cleaning, they have to move for up to an hour or more. A one and a half brush is also called a one and a half brush and is often attached to a cleaning device with a ball (see below), which is also called a one and a half brush. A full brush with 6 or more turns (pos. B) is suitable for cleaning only straight pipes, incl. barbell (also see below), but reduces the operating time by approx. 1.5 times compared to one and a half.

...and brushes

A chimney brush differs from a brush in that its spines stick out in bunches without forming spiral surfaces. Therefore, you can use a brush to clean the chimney with rotation: the awns do not crush or cut into soot and do not get stuck in it.

Brushes for manual chimney cleaning (see figure) are not the same as for machine cleaning (see figure above), and replacing hand brushes with machine ones is unacceptable: a machine brush should rotate much faster than a hand brush, and you will ruin the chimney with your hands more than you will remove soot . Brushes for manual cleaning of conventional chimneys are available with a through axial hole for mounting in a one-and-a-half-barrel (item and 2 in the figure) or with a threaded tip for installation on flexible rods (item 3) for cleaning from below or above, or on a rigid rod for cleaning only from above. In terms of length, location of the spines and action, both do not differ, but the drum brush for sandwich chimneys is designed differently, pos. 4. It is not recommended to replace it with a simple one, because otherwise, the brush core or the load of one and a half rubles can damage the thin-walled pipe.

Note: When using a hand brush on the rod, be careful where you twist. If the brush unscrews and remains in the chimney, it will be difficult to remove it back.

Cleaning from below...

A non-chimney sweep most often has to clean the chimney from below with his own hands - in winter, urgently, when the roof is snowy and/or icy and calling a specialist is too expensive or even problematic. For lower cleaning, a brush (better if it takes soot) or a brush is screwed onto a rod and, building up the unit with them, they gradually push it into the chimney until the working element comes out of the mouth of the pipe (this can be felt well). If it gets stuck, carefully poke and twist: flexible rods with a one-and-a-half brush bend at 120 degrees, and with a brush at 90 degrees.

If you are working with a brush, then you need to move slowly to the full length, moving back and approaching again until the soot stops pouring out in a stream. Be patient: an hour and a half to clean the bottom of a 4-meter chimney with a brush is still fast.

If you work with a brush for the sake of speed, the next stage is the most interesting. A standard handle is placed on the last rod, or the end of the rod is secured in the drill chuck. The tool is switched to right (direct) rotation so that the rods seem to be screwed into each other and into the brush, the speed control is set 2-4 clicks from zero and moves back, rotating the entire system. One pass will most likely be enough, because... In winter, soot cokes slowly, but how much of it will fly into the room... you can imagine, but you don’t need to. And if it goes to such an extreme, you will see for yourself. Therefore, carpets, furniture and everything valuable from the room must be removed in advance, and the walls should be covered with film, secured with tape. It is difficult to hang a ceiling, so plan to re-whitewash it in the spring, and it is better to remove the false ceiling: stove soot eats into all finishing materials.

...and from above

Two scheduled cleanings a year will save you at least 20 thousand rubles, so let’s see how a chimney is cleaned mechanically from the roof. This can be done with a brush on the rod(s), or with a ball (one and a half brush) with a brush, depending on the type of soot and the degree of contamination of the chimney.

Dense gray soot builds up and the lumen of the pipe narrows slowly, so in this case it is better to clean with a brush. Cleaning is done in reverse: without rotating, the brush is slowly inserted into the chimney channel, trying to knock down as little soot as possible (pos. 1 in the figure), and then pulled up faster and rotating (pos. 2), pulling the soot out. If the firebox and vent of the stove are closed, and the fireplace portal is tightly curtained, very little soot will get into the room, but carpets, furniture and valuables still need to be removed in advance.

The chimney brush will not quickly pick up soot in the corners of a rectangular channel; square brushes are nothing more than a marketing ploy. To speed up the work, you can clean the corners with a hard household or bench brush on a pole, pos. 3, but the remaining soot will then fall down and it will take more time to rake them out of the firebox. For the same purpose, thick, dense and/or lumpy soot deposits are loosened with a hook (item 4) before using the brush; it also removes foreign objects.

A special case is cleaning a ceramic chimney. Soot adheres weakly to cast ceramics, but sharp scratches on its inner surface, even very small ones, accelerate its deposition and adhesion to the base to the point that the expensive chimney begins to require replacement. That's why ceramic chimneys cleaned with a special so-called. smooth brush with blades made of steel spirals, pos. 5.

Note: gray light, old or greasy soot from round steel chimney It’s more convenient, faster and cleaner to remove with a disc scraper, see video:

Video: a simple and effective method for cleaning a pipe

What if you joke around?

If you don’t mind the time and effort of cleaning, and the chimney is straight, then you can clean it using the one-and-a-half-piece back-and-forth method. A little soot will also get into the room, but the risk of damaging the chimney duct is minimal. The top of the one and a half rack lends itself to very dense soot, which almost completely or completely covers the lumen of the pipe, because the weight (ball) of the device participates in cleaning, breaking and loosening soot deposits; the ruff removes it more and brings it down. To do this, they use the shock method: a half-truck is lifted on a cable and thrown. For these reasons, chimney sweeps of the past preferred to work with one and a half and were depicted with it.

You can make a one-and-a-half piece for cleaning the chimney with your own hands by purchasing only a brush and/or brush for it. But you shouldn’t use a sports weight as a load: it can get jammed in the channel (see figure below), which will almost certainly result in damage to the chimney and increased deposition of soot in it in the future. See the same fig for how a one-and-a-half-wheeler is properly constructed.

Note: For information on cleaning a chimney with a homemade one and a half sheet, see the video:

To clean a chimney pipe in a private house, you need to know some nuances, otherwise you risk damaging the structure and wasting your time by performing this time-consuming work poorly. If you are faced with a choice between chemical and mechanical cleaning, feel free to choose mechanical, as it is much more effective. If necessary, consult a specialist.

A clogged chimney occurs for a number of reasons. Often the culprit may be a foreign object getting into the pipe. For example, birds or other animals that bring with them nesting material that completely blocks the smoke escape. Excessive soot accumulation (a natural byproduct of the combustion process) can also cause blockages. Finally, large amounts of leaves, branches and other debris can block the chimney vent.

Sometimes incorrect design during construction can cause further frequent blockages. This is the most difficult reason to eliminate, since in most cases it will not be possible to get rid of it on your own, and contacting qualified specialists can cost a lot of money. Often, to completely eliminate the problem it is necessary complete dismantling stove or fireplace in order to build a new firebox and smoke exhaust system. If you do not have the relevant experience and do not know how to clean a chimney, under no circumstances try to do it yourself.

Why is soot dangerous?

During the combustion of wood or coal, amorphous carbon (soot) is formed, containing small particles of solid matter. Soot occurs when hot particles interact with cold air, causing condensation. Because this process occurs in the air inside your home, the soot is virtually invisible until it begins to settle on walls and other surfaces as a black residue.

When interacting with moisture in a room, soot can significantly deteriorate the quality of water and damage houseplants and make the surrounding air unbreathable.
Staying indoors for a long time increased content soot in the air can cause coronary heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and many other respiratory diseases.

The most dangerous effect of fumes is on people suffering from cardiovascular diseases, increasing the risk of a heart attack.

If newborn children are in a contaminated room, this may affect the development of their upper and lower respiratory tract.

The danger of carbon monoxide poisoning is a major concern when it comes to heating a room with wood or coal.

Traditional methods of contactless cleaning

Please note that contactless cleaning eliminates the problem only for a while. If you have problems with mechanical cleaning, use the services of professionals.

People often use the following methods to combat soot and burning:

• Burning potato peels together with firewood;
• Placing a bag filled with bricks into the pipe;
• Using pine firewood to clean the chimney.

Please be aware that none of these methods are foolproof cleaning methods and are not guaranteed to be completely safe. The best methods are mechanical or chemical cleaning. In some cases, you can combine several options if your design allows it.

Chemical cleaning

Sodium chloride

Sodium chloride, also known as table salt, is a simple chemical that is easy to find. Place some salt on the fire while it burns. The salt will begin to react with the water in the burning wood, which will create a weak acid that will move up the chimney and dissolve a small amount of soot. Use this method with caution. Do not use sodium chloride if you have a metal chimney, as the acid will cause corrosion when it interacts with metal.

Copper sulfate

When choosing an industrial flue gas scrubber, one of the most effective ingredients is copper sulfate. This material reacts chemically with the soot and causes it to burn at a lower temperature than normal. Like table salt, copper sulfate, when combined with water, creates a sulfurous or sulfuric acid, which can damage inner part your chimney.

While chemical cleaners can prevent soot buildup, the only way to effectively remove the clog is to manually clean the inside of the pipe with a special brush. Chemical cleaners should never be the only cleaning method. In addition, excessive use of chemicals can damage the chimney, especially chimneys with metal cladding, which will significantly reduce their service life. Before using any chemical cleaner, read the instructions carefully to avoid fire. If the chimney is not working properly and smoke is coming back, do not use chemicals under any circumstances, as this may cause serious poisoning.

Mechanical chimney cleaning

Do-it-yourself mechanical cleaning of a chimney is a very labor-intensive task that requires considerable effort and time. There are four common methods cleaning. Some of them require the presence of more than one person, but all four methods involve a set of the same tools.

To clean the chimney you will need:

• Brush for cleaning the chimney;
• Smoke exhaust rods, rope and traction rings (depending on the method);
• Pipe plug;
• Fabric for flooring and furniture;
• Ribbon;
• Mirror;
• Metal bucket;
• Shovel and broom;
• Flashlight;
• Protective mask/goggles;
• Ladder.

Measure the width of the chimney before purchasing a special brush to choose right size.

Never skimp on the quality of consumables. This can affect both the quality of cleaning and the integrity of your structure.

Basic mechanical cleaning methods

• Top-down rod method. You must be on the roof to perform this cleaning method. Insert the brush into the hole to clean the inside walls by lifting the brush up and down several times. The brush should be connected to flexible metal rods to increase the length of the brush as it moves further down the chimney. Use this cleaning method if you want to avoid getting soot on furniture and walls in your home. It is recommended to close the firebox to completely prevent soot from getting from the walls of the chimney onto things in the living room.
• Bottom-up rod method. This method is similar to the previous one, but to clean you need to be in the house, not on the roof, working with the rod from below. This is much safer since you don't have to climb onto the roof, but it means it's impossible to avoid soot and dust getting on things in your home. To significantly reduce contamination, use a tarp to protect your furniture from excess fumes.

• Cleaning with additional weight. This cleaning It is recommended to follow the same procedure as the top-down rod method, but instead of using a smoke brush, rope, pull rings, and weights must be attached to the flexible metal rods. Add rings and any weight of at least 9 kilograms to the end of the rope, then lift and lower this structure into the chimney from the roof. Don't forget to close the firebox in your home to prevent dust from getting on your interior items.
• Double line method. This method requires the participation of two people. Thread the rope through your brush (use a tension ring to hold it in place if necessary). One person takes the brush and rope to the roof and, holding one end, lowers the installation down the pipe. The person in the house grabs the other end of the rope. Each person takes turns pulling the rope to thoroughly clean the chimney with a brush. Be prepared for a lot of dust in the house after the procedure. Be sure to use a tarp or any other fabric to cover the floor and furniture.

Step-by-step instructions for mechanical cleaning

1. Prepare a cloth to collect dust and lay it in front of the fireplace (stove).
2. Wear a mask and gloves.
3. Light the pipe carefully with a flashlight to accurately determine its size.
4. Make sure your cleaning brush is at least slightly longer than your chimney.
5. Place a tarp or old, unwanted sheet over the fireplace. Use fireproof tape for these purposes to avoid incidents with flames (especially if you use a torch or candle instead of a flashlight).
6. Push the brush up the chimney, turning it inside if necessary.
7. Repeat this process until you reach the top of the chimney.
8. Take a look at the chimney using a flashlight. If the walls are still dirty, repeat the previous procedure again.
9. Use a hair dryer to heat the chimney. Direct the heat source towards the chimney for approximately 8 minutes.
10. Light a small piece of paper in the firebox to check the quality of the work done. If the smoke rises up and does not return, then the cleaning has been successful. Otherwise, you can repeat the previous steps.
11. To make sure your chimney is intact, have someone look outside at how the smoke is coming out. If smoke comes out of several holes, then the chimney is most likely damaged. In this case, do not try to do anything yourself, but contact qualified specialists to avoid a fire.
12. If everything went well, remove all dust and fumes from the firebox using a vacuum cleaner.
13. This procedure must be carried out at least once every month and a half.

• When cleaning, wear clothes that you don’t mind throwing away after completion, as you will have quite dirty and dusty work ahead of you;
• Measure the width of your chimney before purchasing a special chimney brush to ensure you choose the correct size. If the brush is too large, it may get stuck during cleaning;
• Do not use water to start a fire as it may deform the metal chimney;
• You can make a chimney brush with your own hands using steel cables, waste wire and a metal weight. Make sure you use a weight that weighs at least 8 - 9 kilograms.

Checking the quality of cleaning

The easiest way to check is to shine a flashlight into the chimney. If you don’t find any gray, brown or black deposits on its walls, it means the cleaning was done efficiently. The absence of an unpleasant odor while burning wood also indicates that there are no harmful substances left in the chimney. During cleaning, foreign objects may enter the chimney (for example, a piece of rope, fibers from a brush and other consumables). Before lighting the wood and making the first check, carefully ensure that the chimney is free of foreign debris.

If you suspect that the chimney has been damaged during cleaning, do not use it under any circumstances until preliminary inspection. Carry out a thorough check yourself or invite a specialist.

Remember - if diagnostics or cleaning were carried out incorrectly, it is not recommended to use such a chimney in the near future.

Stick to it the following tips to avoid soot accumulation:

• Check the chimney regularly for blockages and, if necessary, contact a specialist;
• Do not burn cellophane, foil and other foreign objects in the firebox;
• Make sure that the entire system from the firebox to the chimney is installed correctly;
• Make sure that all wood is sufficiently dry before lighting;
• Choose the appropriate size stove or fireplace for your room;
• Make sure the fire is completely extinguished before going to bed or leaving the premises;
• If your stove is located in the country and you do not use it for a long time, do not forget to close the pipe with a cap while you are away.

Prices for professional chimney sweep services

If you use your fireplace more than four times a week, you will need to have your chimney cleaned on a regular basis. This is one of the most important factors determining the cost of chimney sweep services, since the more often your fireplace or stove is used, the more clogs will form on the walls of the chimney.

In order for the cleaning to be as effective as possible, it is advisable to clean from both the house and the roof.

If you have been using your fireplace for many years and have never had it cleaned, the cost of a professional may be much more expensive than any subsequent cleaning, as long-term clogs are very difficult to remove.

Approximate prices for chimney sweep services

Prices may vary depending on your region. The table below shows prices in Moscow and the Moscow region.

Dry cleaning is not carried out by specialists and is strictly not recommended for independent use. For an additional fee, a specialist can advise you on how to clean a chimney pipe in a private home yourself.

Always remember that even with proper care, you will not be able to avoid dirtying your chimney, it is just a matter of time. Clean every few months to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning and indoor odors. Despite the apparent effectiveness of home remedies and the use of chemicals, nothing can replace high-quality mechanical cleaning.