I don’t believe it…

Yep, it’s another one of those Victor Meldrew moments…

My little ‘Ramoneur’s’ kit just isn’t up to the job. I pop riveted the joint pieces to the ends of the rods so they can’t separate and then made a metal disc from an off-cut left over from when I made my chimney sealing plate, to go on the end of one. I thought that if I pushed that down the flue from the top, adding rods as I went, that would eventually meet the stuck brush and push it back down again. Easy. But I couldn’t believe what actually happened yesterday when I did it 😐

When I pushed it down from the top it eventually hit something hard – very hard. OK I thought, if I just did the same from the bottom, whatever it was, which stopped the brush in the first place, would surely be dislodged allowing it and the stuck rod with the brush on its end, to be pushed up to the top. Not so. It was like hitting a rock. It just wouldn’t budge. I have no idea what can possibly have got into the flue and blocked it like it has, but it explains why my stove hasn’t been working properly. Looking down from the top, although there’s clinker on the sides, it’s not thick enough I wouldn’t have thought to have caused a total blockage. Also, I’ve taken the flue right up to only 10cm or so below the capping slab that I put on the top of the chimney so access in from the top is quite limited. So at the moment I’m flummoxed.

Nothing for it, I put the flue in myself and now I’ll have to take it out again. I took out my chimney sealing plate yesterday without making too much mess and now I’ve just got to lift the flue off the top of the wood burner and bring it down in sections the way I did before. Then when it’s on the ground outside I’ll be able to deal with the problem, whatever it is. It’s a ruddy nuisance because I hate having to re-do jobs that I’ve done once already but there’s no choice. Someone suggested getting a local sweep in, but I think that would be more hassle than doing it myself – and I’d just be paying someone else to do what I can do myself. But it’s just so annoying 😡

Tomorrow I’m heading up north into the Deux Sèvres to pick up some more old furniture for my spare bedroom that I spotted on Le Bon Coin, so it’ll probably be at least Sunday or maybe even next week before I can take the flue out. But I’ll have to get to the bottom of it. As we say in France, ‘Merde, c’est chiant!’ – look it up, it’s both slang and a bit rude 😉