How to Clean the Smoke Chamber on a Chimney

Cleaning the smoke chamber on your chimney is fairly straightforward. Many people think that in order to clean the smoke chamber, you have to have a fully functional chimney sweeping kit. However, since the smoke chamber is immediately above the fireplace, you can usually access it from inside your house with a shorter brush. This means that you can clean out the smoke chamber without investing in the chimney sweeping brushes or having to climb up on your roof unless you just plain want to.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sheets
• Masking tape
• Wire brush with a handle at least a foot long
• Protective goggles
• Dust mask
• Dust pan
• Broom
• Bristle broom

1. Protect yourself and your home. Tape the sheet down around the fireplace. Cleaning out any part of a chimney can get pretty messy. The best way to minimize the soot damage is to cover everything around the chimney with sheets, including the mantel, the fireplace and the floor. Also, put on your goggles and dust mask so that you do not get soot in your eyes or lungs.

2. Use the wire brush to clean the sides of the chimney smoke chamber. If you cleaned the chimney last year or you do not usually use the fireplace, then there may not be much debris built up. However, be careful. Do not place your face beneath the chamber, but rather keep your head outside the fire pit and use your arm to angle the brush up into the chamber.

3. Sweep up the soot and debris. As the soot falls, clean it up to prevent a major mess at the end. Do one side of the chamber, then sweep everything up. Then do the next side until you have worked your way around the smoke chamber and very little, if any soot is still falling.

4. Use the bristle brush to get any remaining soot out of the smoke chamber. Brush across the sides of the smoke chamber. Use firm pressure and short strokes. You will probably notice that the soot is getting finer and no longer falling down in clumps.

5. Clean up. Sweep up the soot and dispose of it. Fold the sheets so that the soot is trapped inside the folded part, then shake them out and wash them immediately. You can now enjoy your clean fireplace in comfort.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to clean the entire chimney, you can do so with a long brush, working a foot at a time from the top of the chimney down.
• Fireplaces should be cleaned and inspected at least once a year.

References

• How to clean your chimney and smoke chamber.
• A review of different types of chimney brushes.