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Old school brush vs modern rotary system a tough lesson
I finally swapped out my old hand brush setup for a rotary cleaning system last month after 12 years. The rotary got through a heavy creosote job at a house in Columbus in about 20 minutes that would've taken me an hour before. But I had to redo the first chimney because I overspun it and the soot went everywhere. The old way was slower but I never made a mess like that. Anyone else try the rotary and have to go back to basics for certain jobs?
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charlies3719d ago
Dropping into a rotary without the hand brush muscle memory is a recipe for a bad time. You have to treat the speed like a dimmer switch not an on/off button. Start low and slow until you feel the resistance change in your hands. Also keep a damp drop cloth below the cleanout before you even start spinning. Learned that one the hard way myself. The rotary is great for straight runs but I still grab the hand tools for anything with offsets or tight spots. Takes longer but you get way more control over where the debris goes.
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simon_jackson8120d ago
Overspun it and the soot went everywhere" yeah that hits close to home. I've noticed this pattern in a lot of things lately... people jump to the faster, shinier tool but skip the part where you actually learn the feel of it first. I see it with my neighbor who bought a fancy pressure washer and blew the paint off his fence. Or my buddy who switched to a cordless saw and cut through his extension cord because he was used to the old one's weight. The rotary does the heavy work faster but it also gives you more chances to mess up if you're not careful... there's no shortcut to that hands-on learning time no matter what gadget you use.
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