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My first boss in Akron handed me a brush and said never scrub a flue hot, and 30 years later I still wait
He told me that on my first week back in 1993, and I thought he was just being slow about the job. Ran a hot one two weeks later on a rental house off Market Street and cracked the tile liner, cost the shop $1,200 to fix. Now I tell every new guy the same thing and they look at me like I am wasting their time. Funny how the old advice holds up. Anyone else still carry a tip from their first mentor that seemed dumb at the time?
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blake_kelly197h ago
Man, the water on a chimney fire thing is wild because nobody ever warns you about the steam. My old guy told me the same but added that the real killer is the water turning to steam and blowing the whole thing apart from the inside. Never heard another soul mention that part.
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patricia_hill607h ago
I never got the hot flue warning but I did get one about never putting water on a chimney fire, and of course I tried it anyway about six months in, figuring what could go wrong. Turns out a lot, and I looked like a total idiot standing there in the driveway with a soaked porch and a neighbor laughing at me. My old boss just shook his head and said he hoped the lesson stuck better than his words did. It did stick, but my pride took a while to recover. Some lessons you just have to learn the hard way, and some you get lucky enough to hear first.
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