We clean the stove's smoke path and the flue through the ceiling and roof, check the passages and issue a certificate. Sauna stove cleaning costs from €100, with the call-out in Riga and the Riga region included. In the form, say whether the sauna is in the house or in a separate building.
Why a sauna flue clogs faster
A sauna stove is fired hot for a short time, then left to cool with the air supply closed. During the hours of cooling the flue gases are cool and damp, and tar condenses on the flue walls. Most of it forms in the single-wall metal pipe above the stove and in the section that runs through a cold attic. Tar is sticky and burns very hot, so a soot fire in a sauna flue is especially dangerous: right next to it are wooden ceilings, walls and roof structures.
Damp firewood, large amounts of conifer wood, burning board offcuts or waste, and a stove that is too big for the sauna room and so burns with the damper half closed all increase tar.
How sauna stove and flue cleaning works
- Inspection The stove must have cooled down. We look at the stove, the connection, the ceiling passage and the flue in the attic and on the roof.
- The stove's smoke path Many sauna stoves have a channel or chamber under the stones above the firebox. We clean it through the firebox or a cleaning opening, if the manufacturer has provided one.
- Flue We clean a metal flue with a plastic or soft wire brush that does not scratch stainless steel. We remove a thick layer of tar with a scraper.
- Passages We check that the wooden ceiling and roof structures next to the pipe are not scorched or darkened, and that the insulation in the passage is in place.
- Draught and certificate We put everything back together, check the draught and issue a certificate with what we found.
If the sauna has a masonry chimney, we clean it the same way as a house chimney. A smoke sauna, or black sauna, has no chimney, and that is a different matter: there the smoke leaves through an opening in the wall or ceiling.
How often a sauna stove must be cleaned
A metal sauna stove does not store heat for longer than three hours, so it is a long-burn appliance: the flue is cleaned by 1 November and again between 1 November and 1 March. The text of the regulations does not distinguish a sauna used once a week from one used every day. If you do not use the sauna at all in winter, no new soot builds up, but we recommend checking the flue before the first fire after a long break. If you use it often, with damp or conifer wood, experience also shows that a second cleaning in the middle of winter is needed.
Cabinet Regulation No. 238 “Fire Safety Regulations” of 19.04.2016, point 68: the flue of a long-burn solid-fuel heating appliance is cleaned of soot before the heating season starts (by 1 November) and once during the season (between 1 November and 1 March of the following year). A long-burn appliance does not store heat for longer than three hours. Sub-point 89.11: it is forbidden to clean a flue by burning it out. Source: likumi.lv. Regulations checked 04.11.2026; from 2 January 2027 they will be replaced by new fire safety regulations, which we will check as soon as they are adopted.
What to do about tar in a sauna flue
A thin layer of tar comes off in ordinary cleaning. If the tar is thick, shiny and hardened, it has to be scraped or removed bit by bit, and sometimes it is simpler to replace a badly clogged single-wall section. “Burning out” the flue, that is, burning off the soot with a very hot fire, is forbidden and especially dangerous in a sauna. On thick tar: chimney tar removal.
To reduce tar, burn dry hardwood, let the stove burn with the air supply fully open at the start, and consider an insulated flue in the cold section. If the flue is old or installed too close to timber structures, see sauna flue installation.
How much sauna stove cleaning costs
Sauna stove cleaning together with the flue costs from €100, usually €100–130, with the certificate and call-out in Riga and the Riga region. The price depends on the length of the flue, access to the roof, the amount of tar and whether we also clean the house chimney on the same visit. If the house and the sauna are done on one visit, we name the price for each additional flue before the work. All prices: prices.