Hot take: I was brushing chimneys wrong for 2 whole seasons before a homeowner caught it

Christopher Martinez · 2026-10-19T06:30:06.22889+00:00

So I'm up on this roof in Sacramento back in March, and the homeowner is standing in the yard watching me work. She's polite the whole time, then when I come down she asks why I always brush from the top down instead of working bottom up first to break the creosote loose. Turns out I'd been pushing soot and glaze DOWN into the smoke shelf on every single job, which explains why I kept getting callbacks for draft problems and so many of my customers said their fireplaces still smelled after a sweep. I felt like a total rookie. I'd been taught top down by the guy who trained me and never questioned it. Now I break the glaze loose with a poly brush first, then do the full length, and my callback rate on draft complaints dropped to almost nothing in about 6 weeks. Any of you run into this, or am I the only one who had a homeowner teach him the basics?

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Hot take: I was brushing chimneys wrong for 2 whole seasons before a homeowner caught it | Chimney Sweeps - Topic Shares