Had to pick between a steel brush and a poly brush on a flue job, picked wrong at first

Last month I was doing a sweep on a 40 year old liner in Tacoma and the buildup was baked on like cement. I grabbed the steel brush first because I always do, and it just polished the surface and left the crust. Switched to the poly brush, took me twice as long but it actually scraped down to the clay. Anyone else run into jobs where the tougher tool just makes it worse?

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1 Comment

troymorgan21d ago

Read somewhere that poly brushes grip better because the bristles flex into the grooves instead of just skating over the top. Steel is fine for loose stuff but once that crud bakes on, it acts like a burnishing tool. I had a similar thing happen on a chimney in Portland last fall, switched to poly mid job and the difference was night and day. Now I always keep both in the truck and start with the poly on older liners.