Appreciation post: The time I tried to clean a flue with a leaf blower

Got called to a house in Albany where the owner swore his flue was just 'a little dusty'. He had already tried his own leaf blower from the bottom up, which just packed all the soot and a bird's nest tighter into the smoke shelf. Took me four hours with rods and a heavy duty brush to break through the cement-like mess he made. Has anyone else had a homeowner's 'help' turn a simple job into a full day's work?

3 comments

3 Comments

david_reed221d ago

Wait, he used a leaf blower from the bottom? How did he not just fill his whole living room with soot? That's like the opposite of how you'd even think to do it! I can't imagine how packed that mess must have been. Turning loose soot into concrete is a special kind of talent. That poor smoke shelf.

nina_taylor1d ago

Maybe he was trying to make a soot angel.

the_emma1d ago

Oh my gosh, what if he was trying to do that trick where you clean a computer keyboard with compressed air? You know, blow the dust out from the inside! He probably thought the soot would just fly up and out the chimney. But a leaf blower is way too strong, and soot is sticky. It just plastered everything to the walls instead of lifting out. That's a classic case of using the wrong tool for the job.