Real-Life Communication
It's just a few days before Christmas and you've been called into a family home to clean the chimney. At the home, a little boy is intrigued with your black suit and top hat, and watches while you work. As you clean, he asks many questions.
At first you give him simple answers. "Just cleaning up so Santa won't get dirty when he comes to visit," you say with a smile.
But the boy isn't satisfied with short answers. He wants to know exactly what you are doing to get the chimney clean.
"For this job, we have to write up invoices and do a little bit of reading," says Rob Skujins, a chimney cleaner. "But we work with the public, so mostly we have to be able to communicate well."
Read the excerpt below and answer just a few of the boy's many questions:
Cleaning Techniques
To clean the flue, attach the chimney-sweeping brush to fiberglass rods. (The rods snap together in sections. Use as many as you need for the length of your chimney.) From the roof, lower the brush and rods into the flue, pushing and pulling in short strokes (the brush should fit snugly in the flue).
Continue until the brush is down as far as it will go. Then pull it up. Repeat if necessary. Clean the smoke dome from down below.
Most of the soot from the flue will fall on to the smoke shelf. To clean it, take the hose from a heavy-duty vacuum cleaner and reach it behind the damper. You can also use the vacuum for cleaning out the hearth. Don't try to use your household vacuum -- the ashes and soot will ruin the motor.
To clean stovepipe sections, dismantle and carry them outside; clean them carefully with a nylon brush. Check your flue thoroughly with a flashlight to be sure it's clean and then reassemble the stovepipe.
Questions:
- How long of a brush do you need to clean the flue?
- Do you clean the flue from the roof or from down below?
- How come you are using that big vacuum cleaner? How come you aren't using our vacuum cleaner?
- How do you know if a stovepipe is clean?