morgan898•18d agoProlific Poster

I finally tried the wire brush method for clay flue tiles

Last month on a job in Nashville I had a real mess in a 60 year old chimney. A much older sweep told me to use a 4 inch wire brush on a drill instead of the standard plastic one, and it cut my cleaning time in half. Has anyone else found that works better on certain types of creosote?

3 comments

3 Comments

angela68718d ago

My neighbor tried that wire brush trick last summer and ended up scratching the hell out of his flue liner. Turns out the clay was older and softer than he thought and now he's got these grooves that just trap more creosote. I mean if it works for you great but I'd be real careful about the brush grit you pick because some of those 4 inch ones are more like wire scrapers than brushes. I had to ream out a chimney last month where the last guy used one and left metal bristles stuck in the joints like some kind of torture device for the next sweep. So yeah you probably saved time but at what cost am I right?

the_jordan18d ago

Switched to a nylon brush with stiff bristles and it cleaned just as well without the scratching.

scott.jana18d ago

at what cost am I right" - that's kind of the story of everything these days isn't it... people see a quick fix on YouTube or TikTok and don't think about what happens later. It's like power washing your driveway, looks great for a week but then you realize you've etched grooves in the concrete that just fill up with mud and weeds. Or those guys who use pressure washers on their cars and strip the clear coat off their paint. Everyone wants the fast route but nobody wants to deal with the slow damage it causes. Your neighbor probably saved an afternoon but now he's looking at a relining job that's gonna cost him a thousand bucks easy.