That one time a magnet on a string saved my whole afternoon on a tricky flue job

I was up on a roof last Tuesday in Portland, and the customer had this flue with a sharp bend near the bottom, (like almost a 45 degree angle). My regular rods kept getting stuck and I couldn't push the brush past it at all, it was frustrating. After about 20 minutes of messing around, I remembered an old trick my grandpa showed me - I tied a small but strong neodymium magnet to a string and dropped it down first. That thing caught onto a metal damper bracket and let me guide the rods right past the bend on the next try. Has anyone else used something weird like that to get past a tight spot in a flue?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_fiona25d ago

Hold on, is this really that big of a deal? A magnet on a string to guide a brush around a bend sounds like a pretty basic workaround, not some secret technique. Feels like overcomplicating a simple problem when you could have just pulled the damper out or used a different brush head.

tessa_clark7425d ago

And honestly @the_fiona, sometimes the simplest fixes are the ones nobody thinks to share.