The 12 pound soot surprise after 30 years of sweeping

Last week I cleaned a chimney in Knoxville that hadn't been touched since the 80s, and we pulled out 12 pounds of creosote, way more than I ever thought a single flue could hold. Anyone else ever hit a number that high, or is this just the record I needed to see?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewking23h ago

My buddy Ray pulled 9 pounds out of a place in Maryville a few years back, but that was with a dead squirrel and half a bird nest in the mix. He weighed it all in a wet trash bag on his bathroom scale, so his number was probably more like 6 pounds of real creosote. He still talks about it though, says it's his personal record and nobody can take it from him. I just laugh because he never cleans the scale off after, so his wife keeps finding soot dust on their bathmat. That 12 pound mark sounds wild to me too, but I'd wanna see the pile before I believed it.

tessap971d ago

That 12 pound figure sounds impressive, but I'd take it with a grain of salt. I've seen guys who weigh the soot while it's still wet and loaded with debris from the roof, which can easily add a few pounds that aren't really creosote. Also, 30 years is a long time, but a flue that size would need a pretty massive buildup to hit that number, and most chimneys I've come across cap out way lower unless there was a serious draft problem or a bird nest involved. Maybe your scale was off, or you had some chunks of old clay tile mixed in there. Not saying it's impossible, just that I'd want to see the breakdown before calling it a record.