With two flues to clean and soon to be a third, the thought occured of buying a set of the new ultra flexi rods and brushes and doing the job myself. It's a bungalow and the lengths are not great. Anyone got any experience of them? Any pitfalls?

aah yes - i need to pull my finger out and get the flue cleaned - maybe while my daughters off with her mum at half term.
any recommended products and techniques would be ideal.

Thanks Tom, apparently the extra flexi ones are designed for stainless lined flues. They're expensive, but if you've got a a particularly tortuous section of liner as I have, I guess they're the thing. I was slightly concerned as the spiral winding on twinwall stainless is "handed" in as much as the open side of the winding is pointing downwards. Pushing a brush UP the flue seems to have the potential for damage. It's one of the reasons I was thinking of DIY, I know I'll be careful.
Are you attempting a DIY job ali.gill?

Mike

Carry on Sweeping:

I've brushed my own with a 6-incher (ooh-err) on a standard set of Wickes drain rods. Twin wall metal flexible flue, straight up but a bit of a bend where it sags a bit (ooh-err again). You have to bend the rods good and hard (ooh-err again, I thank you) as you get them through the 90 degrees through the stove into the flue, but it isn't that difficult. I burn my wood very dry and as a consequence get very little soot. Could be my brushing's rubbish of course!

Spike - a lot of pro sweeps will give you many instances of where using 'standard' draining rods (with metal ferrules) when cleaning flexi liners have caused serious damage to the liner.

You've either got incredible sweeping technique(!), your liner's as tough as old boots, or you've been very lucky...

I have a Y junction just above the stove and sweep through that rather than trying to get round the tight bend in the stove.

Not thought about the possibility of damage from the rods. Hmmm. Maybe I'll stick a camera up again just to check.

I have solid metal liners in both my stove flues. Having just been charged £40 for a sweep with no certificate :( I'm thinking about DIY. Are there any pitfalls to this - any effect on home insurance for instance?

I was going to attempt to clean my liner soon for the first time. Have the usual 3' drain rods and was planning to use those with a 6 or maybe 7" brush attachment (my liner is 6"). Not so sure now! In a test run I did manage to bend one inside the stove door opening and up into the flue, although it was quite tricky. Once up, it seemed ok though. The issue seemed to be making sure you support the top end of the rod in the centre of the flue whilst bending it in, if you see what I mean, to prevent the rod scraping against the the far side of the liner. My liner goes up fairly straight, so I cant imagine there'd be too many problems once I'm 'in'.

I guess you'd need to follow the careful procedure in reverse when removing the rods, i.e. supporting the top of each rod as you bend it out of the stove.

Seems like a good tip earlier on, about wrapping the brass joints in duct tape to prevent any snagging on the liner ribs.

Posted By: JohnhSpike - a lot of pro sweeps will give you many instances of where using 'standard' draining rods (with metal ferrules) when cleaning flexi liners have caused serious damage to the liner

I just had a quick look on ebay to see that the flexible rods made specifically for chimney sweeping also have brass ferrules. What is the difference between drain rods and chimney rods? What should I look out for when buying chimney rods?