I know a lot of you folks burn wood for heat. I use a wood stove to heat the house, with a stainless flex liner inside a brick chimney. I clean the creosote from the pipe a couple times a year, with a poly brush on fiberglass poles. This works great for the crusty, flaky type creosote that accumulates in the pipe. However, I also get a sticky, concrete like creosote at the top of the pipe, that hardens like resin. The brush will not break it up and scrub it out. Anybody have a practical way of removing this type of creosote deposit? I've not had much luck with the Rutland creosote remover products available at my local hardware store. Thanks for your ideas!

A wire brush on a drill.

best bet is probably small hot fires with really dry wood and do nothing but hot dry fires for a week , then check it and see if it has dried some of that up and made it the flakey type.

when you burn do you burn hot and dry for the first hour or so each day, air controls open and really heating up that chimney?

you want to get max heat from your wood as we all do. but is a little more wood use worth not spending so much time cleaning and the cleaning struggle?

Get some regular cardboard, not the plastic colorful stuff, just the plain brown cardboard. Toss a bunch of the cardboard in and you'll see it get good and hot. I do that a few times a year plus try and burn dry wood and so far I've had no accumulation of creosote.

Not trying to being “that guy” on here but are you drying your wood enough? I like to be a few years ahead to avoid creosote issues but I burn in a boiler that 10 degree heat up back to peak temp that eats a lot of it up. If I put in a wetter piece that’s mixed in I know it right away I can smell it and the door flap gets sticky on me.

The little black stains on the top of my chimney mostly washes off in the summertime. I noticed scraping the door flap with an old skinning knife throws a lot of water from wetter wood no issues with the totality dry wood.

A good crazy hot fire for an hour or so everyday really seems to help when you start with a clean chimney. That build up high like that is usually caused by the chimney not getting hot all the way up before you damper down the fire. Condensation on inside pipe starts grabbing the smoke.

If you burn a few hot fires with Rutland in it, it might dry it up enough for your brush to clean it.

X2

Burn dry firewood. You should be putting up 2027/2028 firewood this spring so it will be dry to burn.

Deciduous woods NOT Pine.

I get the hard resin type creosote at the top of my chimney too. Mine has a clay flue liner. I don't worry about it. It's only the last six inches or so and it's not very thick, not even a quarter-inch. I doubt there's much risk of a chimney fire from it. I just clean the flakey stuff out as needed.

It disappears over summer.

I take my chimney cap off during heating season. They are a bugger to clean when that get creasoted up. I think it makes for a cleaner chimney too.

Agreed
No cap on my insulated stainless pipe when I’m burning. I think it can become a creosote magnet making it become more of a problem than not having one.

I have a similar situation. Wood burning stove, stainless flex liner in a masonry chimney. My wood is dry seasoned hardwood, years old and stored under cover. I only burn my stove with the air control wide open. Still, by the end of the heating season my chimney needs cleaning. I use a wire brush and make multiple passes before the next heating season begins. I'm pretty sure the problem is that I have an external chimney that takes quite a while to heat up and cresote deposits until it does. Once hot I don't think cresote builds up, but our weather isn't cold enough for a constant fire so there are multiple times during heating season that the chimney has to be rewarmed. A paint scraper helps clean the hard stuff off the chimney topper.

The more you heat the less creosote you have to deal with the slower times in warmer weather will cause more build up then for sure I can see that as an issue in a warmer climate. I usually clean my ash out when it warms up and let the boiler cool down more than when it’s cold out. Then I load it up so it burns longer to get to the set shutoff temp that helps to keep the pipe clean.

Ran wet wood one year it was a total nightmare never again now I’m years ahead no more seasoned on the stump fantasy. LOL

This^^^^^^^ and when the fire is really roaring hot toss in 2-3 empty, aluminum beer cans.

Yes on melting down pop or beer cans. I do it all the time and it helps a lot. As far as cleaning that black crap out of your chimney cap, Bring it down then put a few sheets of news paper, crumpled up then touch a match to it. That black stuff is like a tar. It will catch on fire and burn a little. Once it's out and cooled down that stuff will crystalize then just tap it off.

Seldom, what does the aluminum do? Been running a wood stove for 30+ years and never heard of that before.

Burning aluminum cans-
https://youtu.be/8PXK_3QpuP4

The fella in the video speaks about the dried creosote falling down, he’s exactly correct, at least with my woodburner. I could hear the tinkle-tinkle of the falling creosote.

Before aluminum was used it was zinc lids.
Here's a secret.
None of the hocus pocus,
Store bought or freebie,
makes up for burning unfit wood.
AND
Right now is the time of year when
many folks are out of good wood.

Thanks, learned something new .

We burn pine almost exclusively, all we have around here.
Clean it more often, less buildup.
Spouse cleans our chimney probably 6 times a year or more.

The aluminum can things sounds interesting.