Hot take: I stopped brushing creosote out of fireboxes by hand after one job in Dayton
I always figured a wire brush and elbow grease was the only way to get a firebox clean, so I did it that way for years, usually 45 minutes on my knees per house. Last week a sweep in Dayton let me try his rotary whip on a nasty one in a rental off Salem Ave, and it knocked the glazed stuff loose in about 8 minutes flat. What sold me wasnt the speed, it was that the brush got the corners up by the damper where I always left a gray film behind. Now I want to know, does anyone run the whip on old clay tile liners or do you still go soft on those?