That homeowner who asked if I could just 'vacuum' the creosote out

I was up on a roof in Portland last Tuesday when the guy comes out and says 'can't you just run a shop vac down there instead of all that scraping?' and I nearly dropped my brush right there. Has anyone else gotten a request so ridiculous you just had to laugh before explaining why that won't work?

3 comments

3 Comments

jaken232d ago

Dude i had a lady in Beaverton ask if i could just pressure wash her chimney from the inside last spring. She was dead serious too, kept saying it would save time. Had to explain that creosote is basically tar and you can't just blow it around with water, it needs to be physically removed. People really think chimneys work like dryer vents sometimes lol.

amy_foster562d ago

Oh man, I had a guy in Eugene once ask me if I could just stuff a leaf blower up his chimney to clear out the creosote. He thought the air would just blow it all out the top like dust or something. I had to explain that creosote is basically like hardened tree sap mixed with soot, and it sticks to the walls like glue. It's not just sitting loose in there, you know. You gotta scrape it off with a brush or a chain tool, and if you don't get it all, it can cause a chimney fire that'll burn your house down. Water or air just makes a mess or spreads it around. People really don't get how dangerous that stuff is.

palmer.zara2d ago

Yeah that leaf blower thing is pretty wild. It's the same kind of thinking you see everywhere though. People think fixing stuff is just about blasting it with something instead of actually doing the work. Like how folks think a can of spray foam fixes any hole in their wall or a bottle of drain cleaner is the answer to any clog. Nobody wants to hear that sometimes you just have to pull on gloves and scrape stuff out by hand. That's the reality with a lot of home maintenance. It's messy and slow and there's no shortcut.