Rant: That chimney cap almost cost me a whole day of work

I was up in Scranton last Tuesday on a tricky flue job and decided to hammer in a new chimney cap. Long story short, I didn't double check the damper was fully open before I started and ended up jamming the whole thing halfway shut. Took me 45 minutes with a pry bar and a shop vac to fish out debris and get it moving again. My client just stood there watching me sweat, which was awkward. Has anyone else had a cap installation go sideways because of a stupid oversight like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

val_wilson13d ago

Oh man, that "45 minutes with a pry bar and a shop vac" line hit home. I've been there with a different but equally dumb mistake. My worst cap job went sideways because I forgot to check if the cap was the right size for the flue. I just assumed it would fit, hammered it on, and then realized it was jamming the whole thing shut because the opening was too small. Had to chip it off with a cold chisel and a sledgehammer while the homeowner kept asking if I needed a cup of tea. Took me an extra hour and a half to grind the thing down to the right size. Take this with a grain of salt, but I always double check the size with a tape measure now, even if the box says it's universal. Your mileage may vary, but that extra 30 seconds can save you a whole lot of swearing.

matthewgonzalez13d ago

And that right there is the thing I keep noticing in this trade @val_wilson, how skipping one small check snowballs into an hour of fixing something dumb. It's like that with everything too, I've seen it happen when guys don't check the gas line pressure before firing up a furnace and then they're chasing a lockout for two hours. Your tape measure rule is gold, it's always the easy stuff we forget that bites us the hardest.