Shoutout to the old guys who taught me to listen to a flue

Three years ago on a job in Burlington, this retired sweep named Frank showed me how to tap the bricks and listen for the hollow spots. Last month I found a cracked liner in a 1920s house just by that sound, saved the owner a huge repair. Last week a new guy asked why I was knocking on the chimney before I even got my brushes out. Told him it's the first thing I learned that the cameras don't show. Anyone else still using the old school checks before they bring in the tech?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow24417d ago

Oh man, that reminds me of my buddy's story. He was helping his uncle, who's been a mason for like forty years, repoint a chimney. His uncle just ran his hand along the mortar joints, eyes closed, feeling for the grit. He stopped at one spot and said the mix was wrong, way too much sand. They chipped it out and sure enough, it was crumbling inside, all dusty. My friend said he would have just looked at it and thought it seemed fine. That old hand knowledge is wild.

shane_williams17d ago

Hold up, I gotta push back on this a little. @willow244, that's a cool story, but I feel like we romanticize that "old hand knowledge" too much. What if the uncle was just lucky that time? Relying on a feeling in your fingers isn't a real test. A proper moisture meter or even a simple screwdriver probe gives you a fact, not just a hunch. That dusty mortar could have been from a hundred other problems, not just the mix. Sometimes tradition just keeps us from using better, simpler tools.