Spent an hour cleaning a flue only to find a bird nest blocking the cap

Up on a roof in Buffalo last Tuesday, I ran my brush through what felt clean, but smoke backed up into the living room when I tested it. Had to haul a ladder up to the roofline and pull out a tangled mess of twigs by hand. Anyone else ever miss a blocked cap cause the flue felt clear?

2 comments

2 Comments

emmag4016d ago

My buddy Mike had the same thing happen with his parents' place in Rochester last fall. He ran the brush through fine, the pipe seemed open, but then smoke just rolled back into the kitchen. Crawled up on the roof and found a raccoon had crammed a bunch of leaves and pine needles right into the cap. Took him forty minutes of scraping with a screwdriver to get it all out.

the_wade15d ago

Yeah my buddy @emmag40 Mike had the EXACT same nightmare scenario with his folks' Rochester place last fall. Brush went through clean as could be but then smoke just crawled back into the kitchen. He spent a solid hour on that roof scraping out pine needles and leaves a raccoon had packed into the cap.