The way people clean liners with rotary tools is doing more harm than good

I've been called in on 6 repair jobs this quarter alone where someone used a rotary brush too fast on a stainless steel liner and actually polished the inside smooth, making creosote stick worse than before. My crew and I only hand scrape or use slower speeds with poly brushes now, and we see way less buildup on follow-ups. Has anyone else noticed this pattern with the newer flex shaft kits?

2 comments

2 Comments

martin.vera1mo ago

...and then they wonder why they're back in three months with a liner that looks worse than before. I had a guy last week who swore by his new flex shaft kit and left a mirror finish on the inside of a 6 inch pipe. Now it's caked so bad with creosote you can barely get a camera through it. Hand scraping is slow but at least it doesn't turn the liner into a non-stick pan for the sticky stuff.

aaron6771mo ago

Have you ever tried hitting it with a dry scrub first before any power tools? I mean, that mirror finish traps everything because there's no texture left for the creosote to drip off of. A quick pass with a wire brush or even a stiff nylon cup just takes the shine off and gives it somewhere to let go.