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Rod sweeping on oil boilers: does anyone here still do it, or is it a waste of a Tuesday?
Had a call in Worcester, MA last week on an old Weil-McLain oil boiler that hadn't seen a brush in maybe six years, and the homeowner swore the last guy ran a rod through it every fall. I pulled the flue pipe and it was packed solid, half an inch of soot caked on the walls. So the rod either never happened or it did nothing. That got me going with a couple of older guys at the supply house, and they split hard. Half of them say rods are pointless on oil now because the burners run clean and all you need is a good shop vac and a flue brush. The other half swear by them and said I was cutting corners by not running one. I charged $185 for that job and spent over an hour just on the flue, so I'm not trying to skip work, I just want to know if I'm wasting time. Who here still rods oil flues, and have you ever pulled one back out with enough junk on it to prove it's worth the effort?
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dakota_taylor3913d ago
Same thing happens with gutters on a house. Guy tells you he cleaned them last spring, you get up there in October and they're full of shingle grit and maple seeds. People believe a thing got done because somebody showed up and charged them for it. Rodding an oil flue is the same deal, the soot hides in the bends and the barometric damper pocket where a vac hose never reaches. Half inch of cake like you found doesn't build up in one season, that's years of nobody touching it. You did the right thing pulling the pipe and going at it, that's not cutting corners.
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