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Showerthought: the old sweep in Cleveland who told me to stop brushing from the top down on clay flues
When I started out in 2019, an old sweep named Ray out of Cleveland told me to always work a clay flue from the top down with an 8 inch poly brush. I ran it that way for almost two seasons and kept getting callbacks on the same houses. Then a guy at a supply counter asked why I was knocking crease loose and letting it pile up on the smoke shelf instead of pulling it from the bottom up first. I tried bottom up on a two story colonial on West 25th and the debris came out in one push, no second trip. Ray's way was not bad for steel liners, but on clay it was costing me repeat visits and gas money. Now I ask what the liner is before I pick a direction. Anybody else get taught one way for every flue no matter what it is made of?
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charles83610d ago
Took me a while to figure out the same thing on the masonry side. On a big old brick stack with offset flues, going top down just walks the crud down the shelf and it sits there like a little pile waiting to smoke back into the room. Pull bottom up and gravity is on your side the whole way. But flip it on a flexible stainless liner and bottom up can bunch the brush or snag a seam, so top down still wins there. The lesson is you match the tool and the direction to what the flue is made of, not to what some guy told you in 1985.
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