Shoutout to the old guy in Pittsburgh who saved me 3 hours of scraping

Last month during a job in Pittsburgh, an old timer saw me struggling with a heavy creosote buildup and told me to spray it with a mix of water and vinegar first, and has anyone else tried that because it cut my work time in half?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora_wells5813d ago

I heard somewhere that vinegar breaks down the tars in creosote, so that tracks with what that old timer told you. He probably learned that trick back when people actually knew how to work smart instead of just hard.

the_joel11d ago

Working smart instead of just hard" - that's a great way to put it. I'm the guy who spent three weekends with a wire brush on a ladder before a buddy told me about the vinegar trick. Ever seen a guy scrub a chimney flue like he's trying to start a fire? That was me. Now I pour a cup of vinegar down the stovepipe every few burns, and I feel like a genius. But honestly, I'm the same guy who'll still forget to close the damper half the time, so I'm not getting too cocky about it. The old-timers definitely had some stuff figured out that my generation had to learn the hard way.