Tar condensates in chimneys, chimney soot, chimney insulation

Reducing tar condensation - lowering chimney fire risk

Ways to reduce tar and soot build up in your chimney

1. Always connect a stove to an insulated chimney (as per building regulations)
   That means using double skin insulated flue pipe, insulated flexible chimney liner, or pumice chimney liners.
2. Regularly have the chimney swept - at least once a year before the start of the burning season.
3. If burning wood then a second sweeping in the middle of the burning season is advised.
4. When burning wood only burn seasoned wood.
5. Regularly have hot fires - once a day - this will help to dry out the tar that has built up. You can also occassionally burn dry untreated skip wood as this has a very low moisture content.
6. Use Calfire chimney clearner addative - a non zinc based addative that helps tar flake off the chimney - available from FiresnFlames chimney cleaner page.
7. Do not use salt or zinc based addatives as they can corrode the chimney.

All these recommendations will help to reduce the amount of tar build-up in the chimney and therefore the risk of having a chimney fire. These recommendations should be used together, only implimenting one of these recommendations is not enough.