I cleaned my 500th chimney yesterday and it felt like a big deal

It was a standard brick flue on a house in Cedar Rapids. I know some sweeps say the count doesn't matter, you just do the job right. But hitting 500 made me stop and think about all the soot and creosote I've seen over the years. Do you guys keep track of your numbers, or do you think focusing on the total misses the point of the work?

4 comments

4 Comments

ivan_price327d ago

Sam_Cooper's barista friend needs to touch grass.

sam_cooper27d ago

Count those wins man, it's how regular people make sense of a long grind. My barista friend tracks every latte art heart she nails, and my neighbor numbers the lawns he mows each summer. It's not about being better than anyone, it's just a quiet way to see your own path in work that mostly gets cleaned up or washed away. Five hundred chimneys is a real mark you left, even if the soot is gone.

drew_walker27d ago

Hey, that's a serious number. When you think back on all 500, is there one specific chimney that comes to mind first? Not the worst or the easiest, but the one that just stuck with you, maybe because of the house or the people or something weird you found up there.

anthonyrivera4d ago

There was this old Victorian with a perfectly sealed tin box from 1912 tucked in the flue... just tax papers and a dried flower. The owners had no idea it was there, and we spent the whole afternoon guessing about the story. Stuff like that makes the job feel like a weird kind of history.