Bottom-up sweeping, am I the only one who hates it?

I watched a guy in Spokane last week clean a flue and he started at the bottom, pushing the soot upward before pulling the brush down. He left a line of crud right at the damper and said it was fine. That's backwards to me, gravity does half the work if you go top down. But he argued it keeps the dust from falling into the room, which sort of makes sense for a moment. So which is it, are we brushing upward to protect the house or downward to actually clean the pipe? Has anyone else had to redo a job after a bottom-up sweep left a mess?

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janaallen1mo ago

Ugh, I've seen that same shortcut and it always leaves a mess at the damper, you basically have to pull the brush back down anyway to catch what you pushed up. That guy's just trying to save himself a trip up the ladder, but if you don't do a top-down pass with a smokesock, you're just asking for a callback.

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