Today's Accomplishment: Woodstove Upkeep

[ysabetwordsmith]

Today we had a couple chimney sweeps come out to clean the woodstove and put a new fireproof mat under it.  Very handsome brick-patterned mat.  This required a great deal of horsing around the very heavy stove to get it underneath.  They did the lifting, we helped shove the mat around.  (They're planning to pick up an A-frame hoist or something for handling big stoves in the future.)  Also we got new pipe because the old one was rusted out.  Nice new equipment, yay!  :D  I tipped the guys extra because they worked SO hard on this job.  Usually it's just half an hour of sweeping, but gosh, they were here about two and a half hours counting the run into town for replacement pipe.  

Workmanship most highly recommended.  They're based in Champagne, Illinois and service woodstoves or fireplaces (plus assorted other stuff listed on their business card, like gutters) within about an hour's drive, so Charleston-Paxton-Danville area.  If you need this kind of work, tell them the recommendation came from Elizabeth Barrette, and I get a discount.  \o/  Everybody wins.

Clean Sweep Fireplace & Chimney Service
James Levendahl
217-281-1768

Now we just have to find firewood ...
 

Comments

[cat-sanctuary.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, congratulations, she said enviously, having inadvertently left 2x4x10" of creosote-soaked scrap lumber in her wood stove, unattended, expecting about half a bag of mostly damp tissues to burn before quenching the wood, and then having come back inside to find creosote blazing up the chimney and heat igniting the rotten old cheap insulation in the wall...

And I fought the fire, alone, for half an hour, not expecting the fire department to send anyone out, but they did, and once *they* got there it took about ten minutes to *beat* the fire. However largish holes were left in the chimney liner, stovepipe, and adjacent inside wall.

I still believe in wood heat and plan to use it again, but beware of creosote!

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Which is why we have ours cleaned every year, unless it's a winter when we just don't use the stove much. One time we only built a couple fires in the winter-that-wasn't so there was no need for a cleaning.