Fixed a 15 year old masonry heater last week and the owner told me something about my brush technique that I'd been doing wrong for 8 years

She said I was going too fast on the smoke chamber and leaving a layer of soot packed tight against the flue walls, so I slowed way down and started using a smaller brush with more overlap, now the results are so much cleaner I'm almost embarrassed I never noticed before.

2 comments

2 Comments

ray_king1mo agoMost Upvoted

You ever read that old tradesman's saying, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast"? Sounds like you found out the hard way it applies to chimney work too. I was talking with a guy who restores old stone fireplaces and he swore most people scrub their flues twice as fast as they should, thinking it saves time but really just packs the soot in tighter. Sounds like your owner saved you 8 more years of that mistake.

tara_palmer1mo ago

That "packing the soot in tighter" part really stuck with me, I never thought about it that way but it makes total sense once you hear it. It's like when you rub at a stain too hard on fabric and it just sets in deeper instead of coming out. Your mileage may vary but I bet half the people scrubbing their chimneys are just making extra work for themselves down the line.