26. Installation – chimney maintenance All chimneys are easier to sweep if they have been pre-treated before hand. Switch to the driest fuel you can lay your hands on (possibly a small quantity of smokeless fuel if it's on the 'approved' list for your appliance) and burn it with plenty of ventilation. The object is to send a stream of warm, dry air up until the creosotes and tars have become 'crisp' and are ready to be detached from the chimney wall. XXIf your chimney is of masonry construction, now is the time to use some chemical flue cleaner. Properly used it can make mechanical cleaning with a brush far more effective since the soot gets broken down into a fine dry dust that is easily swept away. Two things to remember about chemical flue cleaners;- They don't work when there is a lot of moisture around. Therefore only use them when burning dry fuel and AFTER you have dried up the chimney as described above. They can be highly aggressive towards stainless steel and must not be used with prefabricated metal chimneys or flexible liners unless specifically approved by the flue manufacturer. When cleaning flexible liners and metal chimneys it is essential to use a polypropelene bristle brush tailored to the correct internal diameter (see illustration at right.) With these systems an ordinary chimney sweep's brush is ineffective. Worse still it will almost certainly destroy any flexible liner it is used in.

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