Expert: James Ball - 2/18/2010

Question
The sweeps just left and did a good job as far as I can see. I was having a lot of smoke in the basement woodburner because of using some cruddy wood. They cleared the flue as best they could but said I really needed to use a powder chemical called CLR to be sprayed inside the flue. The draft would allow the powder to coat the rest of the way up the flue. They wanted $200 for a single treatment. Worth it? Or can I find it cheaper elsewhere? The flue is now coated with the hard tar-like substance that occurred after a chimney fire, which I never even knew I had.

Answer
Hello Doug, if you have 3rd stage creosote then yes you need to treat it with any 3rd stage creosote chemical ACS is one  but it might be best to let the experts do it, I would have a local Certified Chimney Sweep www.csia.org, (there you can look up by zip code to find one near you) take a first hand look at what you have they should be able to help.
Hope this helps
James