Chimney Pipe Discovery

Alex and I cleaned out our chimney pipe yesterday. It's advisable to clean the chimney right after the season is over, that way the creosote that builds up doesn't harden over the summer. We did make a sad little discovery while we were cleaning though. I found charred little birdy bones on the top of the stove where the pipe was. Alex vaguely remembers a month or two back, there being a bit of a racket in the chimney. But, we just attributed it to large pieces of creosote banging around with the wind.

We do have a chimney cap on top, but it's not entirely enclosed. Perhaps one of these days I'll take some hardware cloth and put it up around the top to prevent this from happening again.

Other than the grim discovery, the pipe cleaning went without a hitch. The pipe that is located inside of the house is a telescoping pipe. The screws were taken out of the middle of the pipe and the bottom end of the pipe was moved slightly up. A plastic bag was placed on the bottom of the pipe to catch creosote. Alex went on top of the roof with our wire chimney brush and pole. We connected a piece of rope to the other end of the brush. The pole that we purchased didn't reach all the way down the chimney. So when Alex was up brushing the top of the pipe, I grabbed the rope and pulled the brush down to get the bottom end.

Clean Chimney Pipe