Warning: that old soot buildup you ignore can start a fire in your masonry stack.

I had a call last week from a lady in the old part of town, her chimney hadn't been cleaned in maybe 8 years. She said she just used Duraflame logs and figured it was fine. When I got up on the roof and dropped my brush down, I pulled back chunks of baked-on creosote that were nearly an inch thick. The worst part was the tile liner had hairline cracks from all the heat trapped behind the buildup. I showed her the pile of crusty stuff on her driveway and she went pale. It's not just about smoke smell or draft issues, that glazed creosote burns way hotter than regular wood. Has anyone else seen homeowners say they only use presto logs and then find this kind of mess inside?

3 comments

3 Comments

mark4361mo agoMost Upvoted

That "just Duraflame logs" part always makes me shake my head. Those presto logs actually leave behind more of that shiny, hard creosote than regular seasoned wood does in my experience. The real danger is that people think they're cleaner burning when really they're just creating a different kind of buildup that bakes onto the walls. I always tell folks that if you can see any crust or glaze on the inside of your firebox with a flashlight, it's time to call someone. Better to spend a hundred bucks on a cleaning now than a few thousand on a new liner or worse.

jamie9401mo ago

Gotta push back a little on @mark436 here though - I've burned those Duraflame logs for years in my old fireplace and never had that glazed creosote problem. Regular wood gives me way more soot to scrape off the glass door. Maybe it's a moisture thing or how you're burning them, but I'll take the fake logs over splitting and stacking any day.

victor_robinson1mo ago

It's like that thing where people trust the fancy packaged version over the basic stuff and end up in worse shape. You see it everywhere, from cleaning products to food. So what's the general rule of thumb for knowing when your chimney actually needs a sweep?