Vent: Took a job at a house where they hadn't swept in 8 years and the difference was scary

I showed up to a house last Tuesday in Portland and the homeowner said they hadn't had their chimney cleaned since they bought the place back in 2016. I pulled out almost 5 gallons of creosote and soot, some of it was that shiny glazed stage three stuff that can catch so fast. The flue lining was cracked in two spots from heat damage and I could see daylight through one of the gaps. They had been burning mostly pine and construction scrap wood, not seasoned hardwood, which made the buildup way worse. The before and after on the camera inspection was night and day, the flue went from basically two inches open to a clear 8x12 channel. Has anyone else dealt with a situation where the homeowner had no idea how bad their system was after years of neglect?

2 comments

2 Comments

scott.mia2d ago

Did you read that article from the Chimney Safety Institute about how many house fires start from exactly this kind of buildup? I saw it shared in a home improvement group and it said something like 25,000 chimney fires a year in the US. That shiny glazed creosote is no joke, I remember my dad telling me stories from when he used to clean chimneys back in the 90s and he said those were the ones that scared him the most. Glad you caught those cracks in the flue too, that could have been really bad if they kept burning with it like that.

margaretf402d ago

Wow @scott.mia, didn't your dad ever mention how that glazed stuff forms in the first place?