Creosote Removal
Creosote is the tarry residue wood smoke leaves on a cool flue wall. It is the fuel in every chimney fire, and it comes in three stages that need different treatment.
on site
included
If it is urgent
Smoke coming back into the room, a burning smell after a fire, an animal in the flue, or water running down the chimney breast — stop using the fireplace and call us.
The three stages
- Stage one — light, flaky soot. Brushes off easily. This is what a normal annual sweep removes.
- Stage two — hard, crunchy flakes with a tar content. Needs proper mechanical brushing, sometimes rotary.
- Stage three — glazed creosote. A hard, shiny, tar-like coating fused to the flue wall. It cannot be brushed off. It is also the most dangerous, because it is concentrated fuel.
What causes the bad kind
Glazed creosote is what you get from burning wet or unseasoned wood, from damping a stove down so it smoulders overnight instead of burning cleanly, and from a flue that runs cold — typically an exterior chimney on a lake cottage or an oversized flue serving a small appliance.
Burning dry seasoned hardwood on a hot, clean fire produces dramatically less. That is not a sales line; it is the single biggest thing within your control.
Removing it
Stage one and two come out with a standard cleaning. Stage three does not — it needs a chemical modifier applied over time to break the glaze down, or rotary work, and in bad cases the honest answer is that relining is cheaper than repeatedly fighting it. We photograph what is in your flue and show you which stage you are actually dealing with before recommending anything.
Common questions
Straight answers
How much creosote is dangerous?
The commonly used industry threshold is about an eighth of an inch of buildup - at that point a sweep is due. A quarter inch is considered a significant hazard.
Do creosote-sweeping logs work?
They can help break down light glaze, and they are not useless. They are not a substitute for mechanical sweeping, because nothing about them removes the material from the flue - it still has to come out.
What happens on the visit
- We protect your floor and hearth before anything else
- A camera goes in the flue, bottom to top — not a flashlight
- We check the firebox, damper, smoke shelf and the crown above the roofline
- We confirm which appliances vent into which flue
- You get a written report with photographs the same day
Get it looked at
Inspection $49 · Cleaning $99
Other problems we get called for
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