A customer in Tacoma told me my brush was too soft for their flue

Last month I cleaned a chimney in a 1920s brick house, and the owner watched me work. He said, 'Your brush looks like it's just dusting the sides, not scraping.' I was using my standard poly brush. I switched to a wire one I keep in the truck for bad jobs, and a huge chunk of glazed creosote came down. I'd been avoiding wire brushes on old liners, but this changed my mind. What's your go-to for tough, glazed buildup in older masonry?

2 comments

2 Comments

king.aaron3d ago

My old foreman in Albany swore by a mix of wire and chemical. For a real bad glazed flue, he'd use a heavy gauge wire brush first to fracture the shell, then follow up with a creosote remover powder like Anti-Creo-Soot. Let it sit a week with a note on the damper, then come back. The second sweep would pull out this black, crumbly powder instead of hard chunks. It was a two-trip job, but it got the liner truly clean.

susanm563d ago

Sounds risky to leave that powder in there.