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Old timer told me to always sweep from the top down and I ignored him for a year
A guy named Joe who's been doing this since the 70s in Philly told me to always start my sweeps from the chimney top, not the firebox. I figured it didn't matter much so I did it my way for about a year. Then I had a job on Pine Street where I knocked creosote loose from above and it dumped all over a freshly cleaned living room carpet. Had to pay a cleaner 80 bucks out of my own pocket. Has anyone else learned a lesson the hard way from ignoring old advice?
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finley_gonzalez491mo ago
Eighty bucks is nothing. That's like a dinner out with drinks. You learned a lesson but it's not that deep. Old timers act like their way is the only way but sometimes you gotta see it yourself. Creosote on a rug isn't the end of the world.
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Man that Pine Street job sounds rough. Eighty bucks stings when it's your own pocket and not the company's. I had a similar thing happen with a cap I didn't tighten right after a cleaning. The next storm pushed rain right down the flue and the homeowner's ceiling had this big brown water stain. I had to come back on a Saturday to fix it and buy them a new gallon of paint. Old timers really do know the little stuff that saves you headaches.
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ryan_barnes1mo ago
That whole thing about learning expensive lessons vs cheap ones is something I see everywhere now. It's like how people buy a cheap tool that breaks in two uses, then act surprised when they have to buy a second one. Spending eighty bucks to learn a lesson about caps or flues feels bad in the moment, but paying for it later with a water stain and a Saturday is way worse. Old timers might act annoying about it, but they've just been burned enough times to know which corners you can cut and which ones bite you back. It's a trade-off between your money and your time, honestly.
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