Warning: Found out my brush length was way off after 12 years of sweeping

I was reading through an old trade manual from 1987 that my mentor left me, and it said the bristle length on a chimney brush should be exactly 1.5 times the flue diameter, not just whatever fits. Measured my flue today, it's 10 inches, and my brush has 8 inch bristles, so I've been missing the corners for over a decade. Anyone else ever check their brush specs against the actual flue size?

3 comments

3 Comments

samflores1mo ago

Didn't an old sweeper tell me once that using a brush with bristles too short just pushes soot around instead of actually scraping it off the walls? Sounds like you might have been polishing the inside more than cleaning it.

bennett.harper1mo ago

Respectfully, I think the manual oversimplifies it a bit. Brush flexibility, rod angle, and how you work the corners matter a lot too, not just bristle length.

felix4141mo ago

Did I learn this lesson by spending an hour cleaning a chimney only to realize I made it look like a messy Jackson Pollock painting inside? Yeah, that was a rough Saturday. My brush was basically a toothbrush on a stick, and I treated the flue like I was trying to polish a tarnished trophy. Now I actually test the brush on a piece of scrap liner first. If it just pushes the soot around like a bad game of air hockey, it's too soft.