Update on e classic and creosote reamer

[muckamuck]

This is an update from Muckamuck,  to see earlier photos of my set up and general information see last years giant thread "E Classic in central Mass" reply 128 page 7.
I ended up burning 12 cord instead of 8 last winter (4 cords were pine), but I'm pretty happy so far.   When I cleaned out in the spring I did notice a warped steel in the halfmoon secondary burn chamber but dealer Elliot said to keep using it until it cracks so I am. I did have some creosote building up in air intake tube in back and in the propane tube which gave problems with propane ignition.  I cleaned them out and bent ignition wire closer to burner and it works fine now.  I am burning this fall with 23 inch cut split maple.  I stack it sideways to reduce tendency to bridge (hard to bridge across the length of the firebox).  For those of you bridging why not add a few small and short pieces of wood between layers of logs to act as burnable 'ball bearings"??
My maple was cut in May and stacked under cover--but still not as dry as I would like- burning more than I expect in warm weather so I checked heat exchanger and found creotote in a hard coating inside the square tubes that the wire brush would not get out.  (Round brush in square hole is a bad idea anyway).  So I made a creosote reamer out of metal (see photo)

The reamer is built out of 2 3/16 square of 5/16 steel plate welded to a union coupling of 1/2 pipe (along with a couple of small angle braces welded to opposite corners of square).  The union is screwed onto a 3 inch section of 1/2 pipe which is welded to 1/2 rebar about 6 feet long.  I also added a couple extra floating reamers (smaller maybe 2 1/8 squares) made out of big washers welded to smaller washers.  To use: start at top, remove smoke twists, insert reamer a foot or so, and insert the floating reamers and start scrubbing quickly.  With the floating reamer near the top opening you can use it as a fulcrum to lever against the 4  sides as you scrub.  If you go too far the corner angles should help you get the reamer back into the tube at the bottom (don't go below the 3 inch pipe or you may get the floating reamers stuck down there).  If you get stuck you can unscrew the reamer plate from the pipe.  Then use brush (notice in photo above the sleave of 1/2 electrical conduit over fiberglass rod to prevent jamming in the heat exchanger) and you are done.
I did not bother to clean the 20 foot chimney - it looked clean, and besides, how is one supposed to clean it when it is 20 feet in the air??

thats all for now from Muckamuck

[bandmiller2]

Handy tool Mucker,for years I used one made from an old saw blade cut to fit inside my flue with notches cut around the outside to allow scraped off creasoat to fall through.Was attached to a long piece of 1/2 pipe work it up and down when it went through everything was punched out.Frank C.

[JJ]

good idea on the conduit over the wire brush shaft.
I will use this next time I clean the tubes.

        JJ