Tar & soot

[woody paul]

Had problem with wood burner for a couple of weeks, with smoke blowing back when you open door. 

Worked out it is a year since chimney was swept so went up on roof and it was nearly blocked at the top going down to a ridge line, this has happen before but had a job shifting it land up with a small crow bar. 

So anyone know the best stuff to put on fire to soften it, there's a lot of stuff on the market but what's best people have found. 

[agg221]

When I had this on an open fire I always used to burn a couple of sacks of smokeless anthracite (on the advice of my chimney sweep) which did a decent job of drying out the tar. What was left was then a lot easier to break up. I can't see why the same wouldn't work for a stove but you might also need to burn it a bit hotter than usual, with a stronger draft so that more heat goes up the chimney to make sure the exhaust gas is still hot enough when it reaches the top for it to do anything - the efficiency of stoves is one of the reasons why the smoke gets cold enough by the top of the chimney to condense out like this in the first place, so you need it to temporarily be a bit less efficient.

 

Alec