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Cleaned 412 flues out of one 1890s hotel in Kansas City and found the weirdest thing packed in the soot
Got called out to an old hotel downtown KC that had 38 fireplaces, and I somehow ended up doing 412 flues over three weeks because they kept finding more behind plaster. Around flue number 300 I started pulling out handfuls of old brass buttons and what looks like a whole deck of wax-sealed playing cards, all jammed about 6 feet up the stack. My guess is some kid in the 1920s was dropping stuff down there for fun, but I have never seen so much junk in one building. Any of you ever pull anything besides birds, nests, and the usual creosote out of a flue?
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amygonzalez1d ago
How old was that hotel exactly, because 412 flues almost sounds like they just kept adding fireplaces as they built upward? I always figured soot and the odd dead bird were all you could find up there, but a whole deck of sealed cards six feet up changes that.
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