That time I cleaned a 10 year old chimney flue and found nearly 2 inches of buildup

I took on a job in a 1950s brick house last month, owner said they hadn't swept it since they moved in. The before and after difference in draft was night and day after I scraped out about 1.8 inches of creosote. Anyone else run into flues that bad or was this just a one-off?

2 comments

2 Comments

hollyg5926d ago

lol oh man that brings back memories. I had a house from like the 1920s a few years back and the flue was absolutely caked. I swear it was closer to 3 inches of pure gunk, like solid tar basically. Took me a solid 3 hours just to chip through it, and even then I had to go back with a wire brush to get the rest. The draft was so bad before that the smoke would just roll back into the room when you opened the door. After i was done it pulled like crazy, totally changed how the stove worked. Some of these old places just get neglected for decades and you end up with a real mess.

patb1226d ago

Oh man, three inches? That's a nightmare. I bet you could've chiseled a whole sculpture out of that mess if you had the patience. Once that gunk gets baked on over decades, it's like concrete mixed with roofing tar. The scary part is thinking how many times the previous owners just let it smoke back into the room like that, probably thinking it was normal. You're lucky it didn't catch fire with that much creosote packed in there. A clean flue really is the difference between a stove that fights you and one that just works right.