Dropped $85 on a soot vac hose filter and it clogged solid on my second job

Val Shah · 2026-10-16T22:40:04.043212+00:00

I picked up one of those fancy soot vac hose filters for $85 because I was tired of dust puffing back in my face on every fireplace job. First job went fine, a small brick fireplace in Oak Park. Second job was a bigger masonry flue with heavy soot and by the time I finished, the filter was packed solid and my suction dropped to almost nothing. I pulled it apart in the driveway and realized I was supposed to shake it out every 15 minutes or so, which nobody mentioned at the counter when I bought it. On top of that, the replacement cartridges run $30 each, and I went through two in a month. I ended up going back to my old setup with a cheap pre-filter bag over the inlet, which costs about $2 a job and works just as good. So now I have an $85 paperweight sitting on the shelf and a lesson about buying gear before asking other sweeps what actually holds up. Has anyone found a canister filter that survives heavy soot jobs without choking out, or is a pre-filter bag just the way to go?

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Dropped $85 on a soot vac hose filter and it clogged solid on my second job | Chimney Sweeps - Vivisector