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Hot take: a 4 inch brush won't fix a 6 inch flue, and I wasted 3 hours finding that out
Everyone on here keeps telling new guys to just grab a 4 inch poly brush and call it good, but that advice cost me half a workday on a rental in Aurora last Tuesday. The flue was a 6 inch clay liner caked with maybe two years of creosote, and I kept jamming that brush down thinking the looseness was normal stove pipe give. Turns out I was polishing the glaze instead of breaking it, so I ran the camera after the third pass and saw shine all the way up. I finally stepped up to a 6 inch wire and the right rods, and the whole thing cleared out in about 25 minutes. What size brush are you all running on older clay liners, because I don't think one size fits all like the forums claim.
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troychen13d ago
Ran into the same thing on a 1950s ranch house last month, 6 inch clay tile with at least three years of junk caked on it. Grabbed my 4 inch poly like always and it just slid around in there doing nothing, that loose feeling you described was my first clue too. Stuck a flashlight up after two passes and saw the glaze still shiny as glass, so I switched to a 6 inch poly first before going wire, and even that took a few passes to really bite into it. Now I keep 5, 6, and 7 inch brushes on the truck and match the flue before I even pull the rods out, saves me the guessing game. Wire works but be careful on older clay, I cracked a tile once going too hard and that turned into a whole other mess. The forums love that one size fits all line because it sells starter kits, not because it works.
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