Took 4 hours to clear a creosote plug that should've been 20 minutes

Ran a routine job near Lancaster last Tuesday, and the homeowner's flue had this hard, glazed creosote build-up right at the first bend that just laughed at my rotary brush... I switched to a chain knocker, then a scraper, and finally had to chip it out by hand from the bottom cleanout. Has anyone else dealt with that shiny, tar-like layer that won't budge no matter what tool you throw at it, or is there some trick I'm missing that would've saved me the whole afternoon?

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taylorshah28d ago

Sounds like you just hit a bad stage 3 situation, that tar layer gets hard as glass and no brush is gonna cut it once it's baked on like that. Honestly once it's glazed you're chipping it by hand no matter what, so I would not call that plug a 20 minute job.

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