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Got a stubborn 1920s flue clean in under an hour with a shop vac and a bag of ice.
The soot was baked on like tar, and my standard rods just weren't cutting it... so I packed the firebox with ice for about 15 minutes to contract the metal and loosen the crust. After a quick vacuum, the rest came off in solid sheets. Has anyone tried something this weird on an old, unlined chimney?
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owens.nancy6mo ago
Is it still a weird trick if it works? I once tried to thaw a frozen pipe with a hair dryer and ended up just making my bathroom really humid. Your ice idea is way smarter. I'm filing that away for the next time I'm fighting a century's worth of gunk.
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cameron_webb3mo ago
Oh man, the hair dryer thing is a classic mistake lol. I actually tried that exact same trick with a frozen pipe a few years ago and just ended up with a steamy bathroom and still no water. But for the gunk problem, I swear by the ice trick. I had this old cast iron skillet that had decades of burnt-on crud and nothing would touch it. I filled it with water, dropped in a few ice cubes, and let it sit for an hour. The gunk literally peeled off in sheets when I scraped it with a spatula. It was disgusting but so satisfying.
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nguyen.dylan6mo ago
Read about a guy using dry ice on a cast iron stovepipe for the same reason. The extreme cold makes the metal shrink fast and the soot just cracks off. Seems like the same basic idea, just a more intense version of your bag of ice trick.
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