That one Tuesday in St. Louis almost burned my hands clean off

I was cleaning out a fireplace in an old brick house near Tower Grove Park. Customer said they hadn't used it in two years, so I figured it'd be a quick job. Got about halfway up the flue when a chunk of bird nest and soot fell right onto my arm through the damper gap. Caught my sleeve on fire for a second before I smacked it out. Turns out they had a family of chimney swifts living up there, packed the whole top section solid. I'm talking 12 inches of dried nest material and droppings. Has anyone else run into birds nesting that high up and not seen the signs from below?

2 comments

2 Comments

linda_murphy1mo ago

Tower Grove area houses get those swifts every spring, so that homeowner should have known better than to say "unused for two years." That 12 inches of material didn't appear overnight, and any halfway decent sweep would have spotted the droppings or fine debris near the cleanout before sticking a brush up there. You got lucky it was just a burned sleeve instead of a full flue fire from compressed guano igniting.

parker_jones501mo ago

Might have to eat my words on this one. I used to figure a sweep would notice a blockage when they started, no questions asked. But Linda's right about the droppings near the cleanout - that's the smoking gun right there. I saw a guy post a video last month from his own cleanout, and there was fine black dust all around the cap but no one checked it. That 12 inches of nest material would have been damp and packed tight, and a brush would just push it up instead of breaking it loose. This whole thing makes me wonder how many sweeps are just running a brush through and calling it done without actually looking at what's coming out.