That house in West Philly with the bird nest problem changed my whole approach

I showed up to this old row home near 40th and Market. The homeowner said they smelled smoke but nothing looked wrong. I ran my rods up and hit a massive blockage about 6 feet in. Turned out a family of starlings built a nest right above the smoke shelf. I spent 2 hours pulling out twigs and dried grass. The homeowner just watched me the whole time and said 'my last guy never even camera'd it.' That stuck with me. Now I always run the camera first no matter how clean the flue looks from below. Has anyone else run into a nest that was hidden way up like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthonymurray27d ago

I've actually gone the other way on this. I do maybe 30-40 cleanings a month in the northwest suburbs and I still don't run a camera unless I get a specific complaint. Charging a customer for a camera that takes maybe 30 extra minutes just feels like busy work when I already know most flues are fine. If I can feel a smooth draft by hand and see clear sky from the bottom, I'm moving on to the next job. The one time I missed a hidden nest was in a 1920s chimney with a crazy offset, but that was like 1 out of 500.

simonp4727d ago

Oh goodness, that reminds me of my friend Dave who does this kind of work out in Delaware County. He took a job that looked totally fine from the ground and ended up pulling out a full raccoon nest that was tucked way back in an old clay liner. Took him nearly three hours and he said he learned his lesson about just trusting the draft.