Question

How often should wood stove chimney pipes be cleaned of creosote?

I'm new to wood burning for heat and I'm wondering how often I should be pulling the pipes apart and cleaning the creosote and sweeping the chimney?

My wood stove is vented through the wall so I could use a brush from the outside on top of the roof to clean the wood stove chimney pipe.

If you burn wood for heat how often do you clean out the chimney?

Answer 1

I sweep my wood stove chimney once a month and remove the pipes inside the house and brush the creosote out of the black stove pipe and then run the vacuum through it too into the double wall stove pipe that goes through the wall to make sure I've gotten it all cleaned out.

Once or twice per year is usually good enough for cleaning creosote out of a chimney but I sleep better knowing that the creosote is not getting built up and my chimney pipe is clean.

Never go more than a year though without cleaning your wood stove or fireplace chimney as neglecting to clean the creosote from the chimney could cause a chimney fire that could burn your house down.