you do realise a jackdaw can fill a chimney with twigs in the matter of weeks birds /Squirrels quite often build nests in chimneys something as simple as spiders cobwebs can stop a chimney pulling not mention other debri etc that falls down . And as your not able to get it to burn properly your obviously missing something very basic ,
But dont worry its only been 12 years
Gas12, I take your point about even spider webs reducing the draw of a chimney (it's a metal tube inside the brick chimney). Thanks for pointing that out. With regard to birds, there is a cowl on the top of the stack that would prevent birds from doing something really drastic.
My original posting was to ask whether the momentary flickers of yellow show that something is wrong. Now, it seems that you are of the opinion that those flickers do indeed show something wrong. On the other hand, Harry Bloomfield tells me that this is perfectly normal. The result of these conflicting opinions is that, because of what Harry says, I shall
tend not to worry about them. However, because you seem to think differently, I shall probably have it serviced next summer, just to be on the safe side.
One final observation: In the past, months after my annual amateur's "service" I would notice that yellow flames were starting to appear. These were big enough, and persistent enough, to indicate (even to me) that all was not well. Accordingly, I would do my own "service" again by washing the burner-tube, also the radiants. After that had been done, the yellow flames would
always cease — for several months. It's only since I stopped washing the burner-tube (because it started to show rust) that I have merely vacced the burners, and the subsequent
persistence of
small yellow flickers had caused doubts to arise. I find what Harry said is reassuring (he must have had some basis for saying what he did), but next summer, I shall do a service all the same, but
with my concern having been greatly reduced.
L.L.