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Am I the only one who switched from a 12-inch brush to a 10-inch after a customer complaint?
A homeowner in Denver told me my standard brush was leaving a quarter-inch ring of creosote at the very top of their flue tile. I switched to a smaller brush for the final pass and it cleaned it right up. Do you all adjust your brush size based on the flue material, or stick with one size?
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ward.fiona5mo ago
That "quarter-inch ring" thing is so real. I keep a couple different brush sizes on the truck for exactly that reason. A lot of older tile liners are just not a perfect eight by eight or whatever, they taper a bit. If you only run one brush you're leaving money and soot on the table, simple as that. I size for the main run and then go down an inch for the top pass.
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charlie3845mo ago
Totally get it, the taper on those old liners is no joke. I started carrying a second, smaller brush after missing a ton of soot on a whole block of 1920s houses. It adds maybe two minutes to the job and the difference in the final clean is night and day. My rule now is to match the main flue size and then drop down a brush size for the last few feet.
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lily_schmidt535mo ago
Tell me about it. I learned that lesson the hard way on a big old Victorian with a crazy narrow top section. Felt like an idiot when I checked the camera and saw that perfect ring of untouched gunk. Now my kit has three main brush sizes, and I always do a quick measure at the top and bottom before I even start. It's a tiny bit more setup time but saves so much hassle and callbacks.
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