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Found a 1952 sweep log tucked in a chimney in Salem, last entry said 'job done, no charge'
Was doing a routine sweep on an old brick house off Court Street in Salem last Tuesday when my rods hit something soft about 4 feet up. Pulled out a little leather notebook wrapped in oilcloth, still readable after 70 odd years. Turns out a sweep named Harold ran this route from 1949 to 1954 and logged every job, the soot levels, even which brushes he used. Last page says he did a full clean on that same flue for a widow down the street and wrote 'job done, no charge.' I stood there covered in creosote just thinking about how the trade barely changed, we still read the same flues the same way. Any of you ever pull anything weird out of a flue besides the usual birds and bricks?
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cameron7242d ago
You really believe the trade barely changed? Harold was logging soot levels by hand and noting which brush he used, which tells me he had to know his flues cold because there was no camera to check his work. Now we run a scope up there and see everything on a screen, and honestly a lot of guys skip the feel of the brush on the brick and just trust the picture. That line about the widow says more about Harold than the trade anyway, he knew she couldn't pay and still climbed up there. What he wrote down was a habit we mostly lost, not a tool that stayed the same.
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