:: cough cough ::
I can now add the title of Chimney Sweep to my list of self made titles. Last night, in an act of desperation, Matt and I decided that we needed to take matters into our own hands.
For quite some time (since we moved in) I've been trying to get someone -- anyone...? -- to come to our house and clean our chimney. Because it is winter and demand is high, everyone is so buried in work that it's been impossible to get someone out to sweep the chimney.
Yesterday, much to our dismay, the worsening situation with the woodstove cumulated into a smokey disaster in the house. The smoke would no longer go up the chimney, and so it filled the house. Matt spent the better part of the morning trying to flush smoke out of the house, but it was still sickeningly stinky well into the afternoon. We lit a fire in the fireplace, but it wasn't nearly enough heat to heat the house. The woodstove is really the primary source of heat for the house, and without it, we're in the high 40's and low 50's in the house (52 usually).
So! Matt was out and about and I asked him to stop by ace hardware and pick up an 8" chimney brush and enough lengths to get down our 18' chimney, as well as a shop vac and a ladder.
Unfortunately, our strategy could have used more forethought.
We climbed up on the roof, and assembled the brush and 4' extension rods. While I frantically attempted to assemble the bizarrely shaped and seemingly random shop-vac parts into something that would suck a lot, Matt discovered that the spark arrestor cap's screen was completely blocked with soot. He cleaned that out and then ran the brush up and down the chimney a few times. He asked if I could start to vaccuum the soot out, and having mostly assembled 75% of the shop-vac parts I agreed.
I decided ahead of time that having a sheet of something over the floor in front of the chimney would be a good idea, so I pulled out a painting drop-cloth that I've been moving from house to house for about 5 moves (wow, I'll bet that drop-cloth's value has increased quite a bit). I draped it over the hearth, and pulled the tube out of the bricks to discover it was packed SOLID with soot. I grabbed the shop-vac and got to work. I sucked and sucked and sucked. After a few m inutes, I'd removed about half of the soot packed in the bottom, and I had black hands. I don't think I've ever been this dirty. The vaccuum seemed to be losing suction, so I decided to empty it. When I opened it up, the filter was completely caked with very fine ash and soot, and so I grabbed a brush to try to clean it off as well as I could. It occurred to me that maybe the soot and ash was too fine for the filter, and that it might be more effective if I just removed the filter so the soot and debris could go straight into the shop-vac without having to go throught he filter. so, I reassembled the shop-vac, sans filter, and brought the vac in for round two. I turned on the vaccuum (oh man...I am such an idiot), and POOOOOF, the whole house was black. I couldn't see the front door through the thick cloud of crap. Maybe we do need the filter.
It took hours of cleanup to repair from my momentary stroke of genius. Needless to say, my boogars will be black for a week.
For quite some time (since we moved in) I've been trying to get someone -- anyone...? -- to come to our house and clean our chimney. Because it is winter and demand is high, everyone is so buried in work that it's been impossible to get someone out to sweep the chimney.
Yesterday, much to our dismay, the worsening situation with the woodstove cumulated into a smokey disaster in the house. The smoke would no longer go up the chimney, and so it filled the house. Matt spent the better part of the morning trying to flush smoke out of the house, but it was still sickeningly stinky well into the afternoon. We lit a fire in the fireplace, but it wasn't nearly enough heat to heat the house. The woodstove is really the primary source of heat for the house, and without it, we're in the high 40's and low 50's in the house (52 usually).
So! Matt was out and about and I asked him to stop by ace hardware and pick up an 8" chimney brush and enough lengths to get down our 18' chimney, as well as a shop vac and a ladder.
Unfortunately, our strategy could have used more forethought.
We climbed up on the roof, and assembled the brush and 4' extension rods. While I frantically attempted to assemble the bizarrely shaped and seemingly random shop-vac parts into something that would suck a lot, Matt discovered that the spark arrestor cap's screen was completely blocked with soot. He cleaned that out and then ran the brush up and down the chimney a few times. He asked if I could start to vaccuum the soot out, and having mostly assembled 75% of the shop-vac parts I agreed.
I decided ahead of time that having a sheet of something over the floor in front of the chimney would be a good idea, so I pulled out a painting drop-cloth that I've been moving from house to house for about 5 moves (wow, I'll bet that drop-cloth's value has increased quite a bit). I draped it over the hearth, and pulled the tube out of the bricks to discover it was packed SOLID with soot. I grabbed the shop-vac and got to work. I sucked and sucked and sucked. After a few m inutes, I'd removed about half of the soot packed in the bottom, and I had black hands. I don't think I've ever been this dirty. The vaccuum seemed to be losing suction, so I decided to empty it. When I opened it up, the filter was completely caked with very fine ash and soot, and so I grabbed a brush to try to clean it off as well as I could. It occurred to me that maybe the soot and ash was too fine for the filter, and that it might be more effective if I just removed the filter so the soot and debris could go straight into the shop-vac without having to go throught he filter. so, I reassembled the shop-vac, sans filter, and brought the vac in for round two. I turned on the vaccuum (oh man...I am such an idiot), and POOOOOF, the whole house was black. I couldn't see the front door through the thick cloud of crap. Maybe we do need the filter.
It took hours of cleanup to repair from my momentary stroke of genius. Needless to say, my boogars will be black for a week.
posted by rebecca at 9:43 AM
6 Comments:
Ok I am now giggling like a twit. (mostly due to the very clear mential image I got of all this) How much shampoo did it take to get that out of your hair?
ROFL. I just can't help this image. Oh my lord!! ROFL ROFL
hahaha - I'm so glad I entertained you guys with this post. It was another one of those "way too ridiculous moments in rebecca's life".
In other news, it has recently been called to my attention that I actually meant culminated, and not cumulated. I'm not entirely sure this is correct, but I thought for justin's sake I should mention it.
chris - I don't know how long it will take to get it out of my hair. I'll let you know when it's all gone.
HAHAHAH- Sooooo you :D I just can't decide if I should tell Chris. He would laugh so hard but then he may not let you live it down either. Hmmmm, how much do I want you to be teased about this? :D
please...for the sake of my sanity...you must resist telling chris
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