That 1999 sweep I rode with in Philly who did everything by hand

I started sweeping chimneys back in '99 with an old timer in Philly who refused to use a vacuum, just tarps and brushes and a lot of elbow grease. Over the last 25 years I watched us go from that to HEPA vacs and spinning rods that do half the work, but I swear the old guy's results were cleaner even without the fancy gear. Anyone else feel like we lost something good when we traded sore shoulders for all this tech?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaron7401mo ago

Nailed it with the shoulder comment. That old Philly guy probably had a feel for every flue he touched, knew exactly how many passes to get it done right without wrecking the liner. All that tech we got now, sure it saves time but it takes away the instinct you built up over years. I remember watching guys run a brush by hand and you could tell they were listening to the scrape, feeling for dips and turns in the clay tiles. Now it's just vacuum noise and a spinning rod that blasts through everything the same way, no finesse.

charles_young921mo ago

Wait, didn't those old rotary brushes usually wreck the liner more than a modern spinning rod?

claire_young761mo ago

That comment about listening to the scrape really got me thinking. Did any of the old timers you knew ever go totally by feel and miss a problem, like a cracked tile that needed replacing before it got worse? In my experience, that instinct is great but it can also make you overconfident and skip a proper inspection.