emma72•4mo ago

Had to choose between a rotary brush and a manual chain flail last week

I was working a heavy creosote job on an old masonry chimney in a 1920s house near downtown. The buildup was thick and flaky, not the hard stuff you find from wood stoves. I went with the rotary brush because I figured it would be gentler on the aging clay tile liner. Halfway through, I knocked a piece of tile loose and had to crawl up on the roof to fish it out. Has anyone else had luck using chain flails on older flues without damaging the liner?

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2 Comments

blairm354mo ago

Doubt that little tile piece really needed fishing out.

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seandavis4mo ago

Listen @blairm35, I've been there and done that with these shower jobs more times than I care to count. That little tile piece you're talking about might look small but if it gets loose it can start banging around inside the wall every time the water runs. Give it a year or two and it'll wear a hole right through the waterproofing membrane, then you've got a much bigger problem on your hands. Better to fish it out now while you can still reach it than to rip open the whole wall later. Caught one of these myself in a rental property a few years back, saved me from a mold nightmare down the road. Your mileage may vary but that's been my experience with these things.

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