Bought a cheap rotary brush or paid a pro to do the flue liner by hand, and I picked wrong
Had a job in Jersey City last week, a 1920s brick house with a flue that had about 30 years of glazed creosote caked on it. I had two choices: drop $340 on a rotary brush setup from a supplier I trust, or spend the day doing it by hand with my old 8 inch poly brush and rods. I went cheap and hand-scrubbed it, and after 4 hours I was still chipping at stage 3 glaze that wouldn't budge. Ended up calling a buddy who lent me his rotary kit, and it was done in 40 minutes. So what's your cutoff point where hand work stops making sense and you just buy the tool?