Not so pretty, is it?

This is soot, the built-up carbon that remains after incomplete burning.

When the temperature isn't hot enough in the wood stove, or in the chimney pipes, soot will slowly build up on surfaces. If there is too much, the soot can eventually catch fire, and this could potentially be dangerous as chimney pipes are not designed to have a fire burning inside them.

Every year, and sometimes more than once, the chimney pipes need cleaning. The procedure itself is pretty easy. I use a brush, connected with long poles that reach all the way up to the top of the chimney. You brush the inside of the pipes, and wait for the soot to collect down below.

I use a plastic bag to collect the soot, but it's an imperfect procedure, as there is always soot that escapes the bag and winds up around me, and in the general vicinity of the wood stove. Generally I collect about 500 ml or so.

The preparation before the cleaning, and the work after the cleaning are the most difficult part of the procedure. Before cleaning, I must removed one section of pipe, then physically move the wood stove away from the rest of the pipe, so that I can feed in the brush and the poles connected to the brush. To move the stove, I must first put it onto some wooden slats so that the wood stove can slide. To get the wood stove on to the slats, I must use my car tire jack to raise the wood stove, one side, then the other, to get the slats under the wood stove legs.

After the cleaning, I have to clean the area around the wood stove for stray soot. I must also clean and wipe down the floor in the area and anything else in the vicinity of the wood stove. It's amazing how far the soot can travel. Even when you don't see it with the naked eye, wiping with a wet cloth shows that the soot travels quite far.

After the area is cleaned up, the wood stove can be moved back into place, lowered off of the slats, and the piece of removed pipe once more connected to the rest of the pipe and stove.

The whole procedure takes from 60-90 minutes. Luckily, I usually only have to do this once a year.

And now, this year is done, and my work on the wood stove is finished (mostly) until the fall.