Just realized I've been cleaning flues wrong for ages

I was working on a 1920s brick chimney in St. Louis last Tuesday, and the homeowner asked to watch. I was using my standard stiff brush, pushing hard like always. He casually mentioned his last sweep used a softer brush and spun it slowly, saying it was better for the old clay liner. I tried it his way on the next section, and a huge pile of soot I'd missed just fell down. I've probably been leaving behind a ton of creosote by being too aggressive. Has anyone else switched up their brush technique for older liners?

2 comments

2 Comments

tara34515d ago

That's a really good catch. What kind of softer brush did he use, like a poly brush or something with really flexible bristles?

grace92615d ago

He mentioned a synthetic squirrel hair brush, which is super soft and holds a ton of glaze. The key is that it's not stiff at all, it's almost floppy. It lets you push the glaze into the texture without scraping the underlayer off. Do you know if that type of brush works better for certain glaze consistencies than others? I've only used mine with pretty thin washes.