I had a bad experience last year with a young ramoneur who did not know how to sweep our Godin stove. He’d taken over from the old experienced guy who had been coming to us for years with no problems but unfortunately has now retired.
I need to find someone else locally but before I do, I’d be grateful if someone here can confirm how to sweep our stove. I know it sounds silly, but I never needed to watch the old guy do it, but I’m pretty certain he was sweeping from within the stove. The young man, to my horror was trying to dismantle our chimney - I sent him packing. NB: I know some chimneys have an opening for sweeping, ours does not.
Inside the stove there are two flanges, one on each side of the firebox. I am assuming that this RH one is what the old sweep used - took off the flange and swept through the hole behind the flange.
I have a Villager, not a Godin so it won’t be the same, but the principle might be.
Our Sweep removes the heavy cast iron baffle plate which is below the bottom of the chimney insert and then simply pushes his vaccuum cleaner nozzle up it to suck all the soot out.
What I am not sure about was whether he had a very long tube to push up it or just a short, very well sealed one, but he certainly didn’t have to dismantle anything at all apart from the baffle plate.
Until a couple of years ago I used to do it myself, but I walked up the roof, removed the concrete table at the top and pushed my sectioned traditional sweeping brush down the tube. Of course I had removed the baffle plate first (the hardest part) and made sure the doors were closed, but at no time did I have to touch the tube.
Ah, sounds like I’m looking at the wrong bit. I’ve just checked with a torch and there is nothing like a baffle plate that can easily be lifted out. The curved bit above the back plate goes up into the chimney and then comes forward into the chimney space, all of a piece.
