joseph932•25d agoMost Upvoted

That creosote log in the rain took me three hours

Had a job last Tuesday up in Portland. Regular customer, old house they just bought. They said it was a simple cleaning. Got up there and found wet creosote logs jammed in the flue. Like half a dozen of them. Someone shoved them in there during a rainstorm and they swelled up. Took a pry bar and a shop vac to break it apart piece by piece. Two hours just to clear the blockage. Then another hour to scrape the rest of the liner. Whole job should have been 45 minutes tops. Has anyone else dealt with wet creosote logs blocking things up?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_jenkins25d ago

Took me two hours to remove one swollen log (guess who forgot the Vaseline).

diana_king25d ago

@evan_jenkins bet you wished you tried the boiling water trick first. Pour a kettle over the log, wait 10 minutes, and it'll shrink right down. Works way better than prying and swearing for two hours. I've done it on jammed oak logs that were stuck for days.