c/chimney-sweeps

Second chimney on the same roof gave us a nasty surprise in Portland

A homeowner's 15-minute lecture made me flip on liner inspections

Last Tuesday I was doing a routine sweep in Portland and the guy follows me up to the roof, starts pointing at the clay tiles saying I'm wasting his time because he 'had it done last year.' I pulled the camera down the flue anyway and found a 3-foot gap where the old liner had shifted, looked like it had been like that for months. He went quiet real fast, then admitted his last sweep never even ran a brush through it, just did a visual from the fireplace. That conversation stuck with me because I realized we sell trust, not just cleaning, and too many guys are skipping the full check to get to the next job. Since then I've been doing a free camera scan on every single sweep, even the cheap ones, and I've found liner issues in 4 out of 12 houses this month. Anyone else seeing more of this from homeowners who think a sweep is just a brush and a vacuum?

Warning: creosote log claims are way overblown

I spent a whole Saturday last month chasing down a draft issue that turned out to be a giant creosote chunk that a log supposedly 'treated'. The package said it loosens buildup so it falls off, but all it did was make a mess in my customers flue. Took me 6 hours with a rotary loop to finally clear it, and I had to redo the whole clean. Has anyone else had these logs cause more trouble than they save?

Dropped $400 on a magnetic sweep system, total bust

I mean, the magnet kept grabbing soot dust but missed half the creosote chunks on a 2-story flue in Akron, took forever to clean up after. Anyone else tried those magnetic rigs and gone back to basic rods?

Tried that new magnetic sweep head, flag fell off 40 feet up

Picked up one of those magnetic collection heads last week, figured it'd save me from chasing loose screws in the firebox. Got it on a rental job over in Clackamas, and about 40 feet up the rod the magnet let go with a whole bag of creosote chunks riding on it. The flag that tells you it's seated snapped clean off, so I had no warning it was slipping. Lesson learned, I'm back to the old screw-on brush head and checking the collar before every drop. Anyone else have a magnetic head fail on a tall flue or was it just my bad luck?

Noticed a clean flue setup at a coffee shop in Portland

Stopped by a little place off Burnside last weekend and their wood stove vent was done right. The liner was smooth, no soot buildup visible at the cap, and they had a proper spark arrestor. I asked the owner when it was last swept, he said 3 months ago and showed me the receipt. Made me want to hand out business cards, honestly. Anyone else ever spot a solid install out in the wild and just have to check it out?

Is it really safer to use a steel brush on clay flues? I keep seeing guys do it

Most of the sweeps I've met around Boise swear by steel brushes for clay liners, but I've pulled out enough gouged clay to question that. The NFPA 211 says to match the brush to the liner, so why does everyone ignore that? Am I missing something or are we just stuck in old habits?

Found out old brushes had steel bristles, now I get the rust stains

I was cleaning out my grandpa's old toolbox last weekend and came across a brush from the 1960s. The bristles were steel wire, not the nylon or poly stuff we use now. That explained a ton of chimney stains I've seen in older houses, rust streaks that I always blamed on the flue pipe. Turns out those old brushes would scratch up the clay liner and leave metal bits behind. I looked it up online after finding it, and yeah, steel was standard until the late 70s. Now I'm wondering how many of those old brushes are still floating around in people's garages. Anyone else run into vintage gear that made you question what you thought you knew? I kept it as a relic, but I won't be using it on a job.

Cracked a clay flue liner in Billings, total headache

Last Tuesday I was doing a routine sweep on a 1970s home and the rotary brush snagged a seam in the clay liner. Pulled back to check and there was a hairline crack running about 2 feet up, which the homeowner said wasn't there before. I stopped the job and recommended a stainless steel reline quote at $3,800, but has anyone else had a brush cause this or was the liner already failing? They're blaming my equipment, so I need to know how you all handle this.

Skeptical about rotary brushes for years, now I use one on every job

I avoided rotary brushes for a long time, figured they were just a gimmick and my rods and hand brushes did fine. Then I took on a chimney in Portland with this nasty creosote glaze that I could barely scratch after 45 minutes. Borrowed a mate's rotary setup and it stripped that glaze down in under 10 minutes, no drama. Now I carry one in the van for any chimney over 15 feet or with heavy buildup. Has anyone else switched over, or do you still swear by the old school method?

Was sure a spinning brush was a gimmick, now I use it on every job

I spent 14 years doing flues with just rods and hand brushes. Last spring a guy I sub for kept pushing this rotary attachment that clips onto your drill. I figured it would just fling soot everywhere and wreck the motor. Finally tried it on a nasty creosote buildup off Route 9 in Ashland. Took maybe 20 minutes versus the usual hour, and the chimney looked cleaner than I ever got it with a manual scrape. The catch is you still have to do the smoke shelf by hand, no way around that. Anyone else find these things only work on straight runs, or is it just my old elbows that make the angled sections a pain? I'm curious if it's worth buying a nicer brand or if the cheap one I borrowed did the trick by luck.

Caught myself scrubbing the flue cap like a maniac for 2 years before a customer asked why

She said 'why are you polishing that, it's just gonna get sooty again' and I stood there with my rotary brush in one hand, a dirty rag in the other, and realized I'd been treating a $15 cap like fine china since 2021, has anyone else ever tunnel-visioned on one tiny job and missed the bigger picture?

Wire brush vs. poly brush for creosote, I finally switched

After 12 years using a wire brush, I tried a poly brush on a heavy glaze job last week and it cut the time by a third. Has anyone else found poly brushes wear out faster on rough clay liners, or was that just my bad luck?

My mentor's callout on my rod angle saved my back in Rockford

I've been sweeping for about 11 years now, and I always thought I had my technique down. Then last spring, old Dave watched me work a fireplace in Rockford and said, "You're fighting the flue, not guiding it." He showed me how I was holding my rods at 20 degrees too steep, which made me muscle every twist and put all that strain on my lower back. I switched to a flatter angle and started rotating from my shoulder instead of my wrist, and honestly, my joints feel better after a full day than they did after a single morning job. I also cut my average sweep time from 45 minutes to 30 on standard chimneys. Has anyone else had a senior sweeper correct their stance or grip and notice a huge difference in fatigue?

Had a rotor detonate on a 5-story commercial stack in Austin this morning

The flue was so caked with tar that the rotary head seized mid-run, and when I pulled it out the cable snapped and sent $120 of brush parts down the chimney, so now I'm wondering if anyone else has switched to a chain-driven setup for really heavy buildup.

Before and after shots of a creosote log situation in Wichita

I got a call from a house in Wichita that had been burning unseasoned wood all winter. The flue was packed with a shiny, tar-like creosote layer about an inch thick in spots. I ran a rotary brush for a solid 40 minutes and then followed up with a scraper on the worst sections. The difference was night and day, the draft pulled so much better after we cleared it out. Anyone else run into flues that bad from green wood and have a favorite way to break it down fast?

Third clogged blower motor this month, and I finally took the duct apart

Out on a house in Akron last week, the unit was humming but dead. Opened the access panel and there it was, a pillow of lint wrapped around the shaft like a burrito. I cleared it, but then it hit me that I've been doing this exact fix since March. So I popped the whole duct run off and found a bird's nest about 8 feet in. The homeowner told me they haven't had birds in the attic, but the evidence said otherwise. I ended up refusing to put it back until I sealed the vent cover with some new mesh. Cost them an extra $60 for parts and labor, but they were cool about it. How often do you guys actually dig into the duct vs just clearing the motor?

Does anyone else think brush vs rotary is getting too tribal?

Had a chat with a guy at the supply house in Denver last week. He's been sweeping for 25 years and he told me he only uses the old wire brush, never touches a rotary. Said rotaries just push the creosote around and hide problems. I've been team rotary since I started, and I told him my cameras show a cleaner flue after every job. He just laughed and said I was chasing shiny tools. Now I'm second guessing my whole approach. He's got 25 years on me, so maybe he knows something. But I've done 60+ flues this year with the rotary and had zero callbacks on draft or buildup. Is this just a generational thing or is there a real technical difference? Anyone switch teams halfway through their career and notice a difference on the next inspection?

The rotary brush I swore by, switched to rods after a week in Tacoma

I used to think spinning brushes were the only way to actually clean a flue, then a masonry stack with heavy creosote just laughed at my setup for 40 minutes. Grabbed a set of rods and hand brushes from the truck, got the same flue done in 15. Anybody else ditch the spinning heads for the old school approach on rough brick?

Dropped $200 on a rotating brush kit, best and worst call in the same month

It cleaned my flues like a dream on 2 jobs, then the motor died on the 3rd one and left me with a sooty mess in the customer's living room. Anyone else gamble on pricier gear or are you sticking with the basic rods and calling it good?

Hot take: hand sweeping vs. vacuum cleaning hasn't really changed for me

I used to hand sweep every residential job with a stiff brush and pan, like my grandpa taught me back in 2018. Last year I tried using a HEPA vacuum on a tight job in Denver and it left so much fine dust in the flue I had to redo the whole thing the next day. Am I the only one who still sticks to traditional sweeping for most houses?

The days of hand-sweeping with a wire brush are long gone

I started sweeping chimneys back in the late 90s with my uncle. Back then, we used nothing but a stiff wire brush and a lot of elbow grease. You'd spend an hour on a single flue, scraping out cresote by hand, and your arms would be sore for two days. Now I've got a rotary system with flexible rods and a drill attachment. I did a job last week on a three-story colonial in Philadelphia and had it cleaned in under 30 minutes. The difference is night and day. But I still miss the rhythm of the old way sometimes. Any of you old-timers still do it by hand for certain jobs?

That chimney fire I had to deal with in a 1920s brick house

Got a call last month for a job in a old neighborhood near downtown. The homeowner said they smelled smoke but nothing looked wrong. I opened up the flue and found a good 2 inches of creosote buildup that had caught a small fire going. Grabbed my rotary brush and went at it for about 45 minutes, then ran a camera up to check for cracks. The liner held up but I told them they need to sweep every year not every 3. Has anyone else run into hidden fires like that in older masonry?

Tried a rotary brush on a heavy creosote job and it caught fire on me

Last winter I was cleaning a big wood stove flue in Rhode Island and my rotary brush started smoking halfway through the second pass. Turns out the heavy buildup was too much for it at full speed and I burned through the bristles in under 5 minutes. Has anyone else dealt with their brush overheating on thick creosote?

Heard a young sweep call a soot eater a 'dusty boomer' today

I was cleaning out a flue behind a newer crew last week and one of them said my wire brush was an antique. Made me think about how much gear has changed since I started in '92. Back then we used burlap sacks and lead weights for heavy creosote, no HEPA vacs or carbon monoxide detectors on every job. That kid probably never had to crawl a 12-inch clay liner on his elbows with a flashlight in his teeth. I don't miss the back pain but I do miss when a set of rods lasted you ten years. Anyone else notice younger guys skipping hand brushing and going straight to rotary?