That old master sweep in Pittsburgh told me to stop using plastic bristle rods on clay flues

He swore the plastic would melt and stick to the liner if a hot ember fell, and sure enough last month I pulled a melted mess out of a job in Akron that confirmed everything he said - anyone else had a close call with the wrong rod material?

3 comments

3 Comments

jason9582mo ago

Honestly, that old master knew his stuff, polyester rods melt at like 450 degrees.

blairm352mo ago

Wait wait wait, "melts at like 450 degrees"? That can't be right, can it? I mean, I've seen polyester rods take some serious heat, but 450 sounds like it's almost in the range of some metals or something. I gotta double check my own numbers because I thought they'd give out way sooner than that, maybe around 350 or so. That old master must have been running some wild experiments to know that for sure.

jakeperry17d ago

That old master was probably the same guy who told me you could reheat pizza in the oven at 500 degrees and it'd be fine. Spoiler alert: it wasn't fine, but the smoke detectors really added some drama to dinner.