Difficulty pushing pipe brush through a 90 degree elbow

[geek]

Tried this in the past and today I want to cleanup piping. This is for stove in the basement, want to insert 3" brush from outside, there's a 90 degree elbow inside bringing the pipe down to the stove.

Don't want to push too hard and cause trouble.

Have you used a brush in that case and passed through the 90 degree elbow?

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I don't use a brush, when I want to clean the outside exhaust system through to the tee really good I attach an old towel to a piece of 14/2 and run that trough the works a few times, always worked for me, and the parts to make the cleaning gear were already in the junk box ;-), if you don't have any 14/2 hanging around you can use a length of chain with a small weight on the end to toss through the 90 degree bend and use the chain to haul the old towel with. I did think of getting a lint eater but that'd cost money. Remember reduce, reuse, recycle, dispose of, in that order.

 

[geek]

the tee cap inside in the basement is sealed with foil tape, trying not to get it apart....

..

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Then how do you access the mess in the tee? Small hose through the exhaust blower cavity?

Turn the brush as you slowly insert it if the brush is on a flexible shaft it should go around the bend without any hard pushing really needed.

 

[Czech]

Do you have a ball at the end of the brush snake? Most have a 1" or so ball on the tip to help guide the brush around the 90. As Bear said, twisting sometimes helps...

 

[geek]

yeah, has little ball, I did the cleaning up to the 90 elbow this time, next time I'll try removing the tee cap downstairs.

..

 

[tchdngrnby]

Spin that puppy with your drill motor and you should be able make it around the 90....

 

[rickwa]

i take the end of the rod and prebend it a little to get it to start around the corner. if you are using the cheap brush with the 20'of rod preattached from lowes you may have thin some of the bristles out, they fit to tight in the pipe and dont want to make the corner.

 

[56 chevtruck]

mine has 90 in basement no issue pushing 4"brush down. twisting/turning flexible rod helps as others mention. mine has no ball on brush. i usually can here brush clunk when it hits bottom by tee. therefore i did really see a need for messing with tee. put 1 1/2" shop vac hose down pipe done.i pulled exhaust motor a few times after doing this just to see how much in tee and not much in behind motor and tee to worry about. each stove is gonna be different i would say.