A old sweep in Pittsburgh showed me his brush spinning trick at a supply house demo, and it fixed my worst creosote problem

Margaret Nelson · 2026-09-15T17:50:04.480286+00:00

I was at a chimney supply house in Pittsburgh about 5 months ago for a demo day and this old timer named Ray was there showing off his gear. I had been fighting a really bad stage 3 creosote job on a rental property for 3 weeks and nothing I tried was working. Ray watched me complain about it and said 'son, you're going too slow on the flue, you're just polishing it.' He grabbed a poly brush with a whip on the end and ran it at a higher speed than I ever would. He said on glazed creosote you want the brush spinning fast enough that the whip is snapping off the glaze, not dragging along it. I tried it on that job the next day and pulled out maybe 8 gallons of black flakes that I had been leaving behind. I always ran my drill at half speed before because I was scared of tearing up the flue liner. Has anyone else heard this from an old timer or is Ray just full of it? I want to know if this is standard practice now or if I got lucky.

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A old sweep in Pittsburgh showed me his brush spinning trick at a supply house demo, and it fixed my worst creosote problem | Chimney Sweeps - HW Forums