I used to think a stiff brush was best for every job, but a flexible one saved a tricky flue last month.

I was cleaning a narrow, slightly bent flue in a 1920s house in Springfield. My old 8-inch stiff poly brush kept getting stuck and just wasn't cleaning the sides well. I switched to a 6-inch flexible wire brush I had in the truck, and it bent with the flue and got all the creosote off the back wall in one pass. The difference was the brush could move with the shape of the chimney instead of fighting it. Anyone have a go-to flexible brush brand they trust for old masonry?

3 comments

3 Comments

young.nora26d ago

Wait, you found a 1920s flue in Springfield?

jamie_carter8726d ago

My old boss in St. Louis swore by the flexible Guardian brushes for those tight spots. I get what kaih36 is saying about heavy buildup, but sometimes you just need the right tool to get in there. And yeah @young.nora, Springfield has a ton of those old homes with the weirdest flues.

kaih3626d ago

But what if the stiff brush was getting stuck because it was actually doing its job, scraping off the really thick stuff that a flimsy brush would just skip over? Sometimes you need that rigid pressure to break through heavy buildup, even if it's a slower fight. A flexible brush might just polish the surface and leave the hard layers behind, giving you a false sense of a clean flue. Maybe the problem wasn't the tool, but needing a smaller diameter of that stiff brush to fit the old masonry properly.