ss flex cleaning questions

[mainemaul]

had my 50yr old 2 flue lined a few years ago. had a sweep do the last cleaning but i decided to take this on myself.
i remember when the contractor inserted the flue, he told me to use the poly brush not the steel one.
now, it is flex so its not perfectly straight and i had a heck of a time pushing the brush down with fiber rods,however i did have the foresight to put a piece
of rope and weight on the pull ring, so off the roof to the cellar to pull the rope and what a mess!
i had pulled the stove pipe out from the top of the stove before i started because my cleanout is behind the stove! i left the cleanout door closed
but the creasote came out all over the stove from the pipe.
BIG BLACK CLOUD. good thing wifey was not home! so finished by pulling on rope, only had 2 or 3 feet to go and the brush came out and made even more
a mess.
question- how to clean this without a big mess, plastic bag taped to stove pipe?
i still have to open cleanout to pull rope down
we are talking approx. 25 ft of chimney cape cod style home.
still cleaning up!
thanks in ad vance guys

 

[yanksforever]

Use this kind of brush next time...it will make your job a lot easier.

http://www.northlineexpress.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5RU-PF-8

 

[cmonSTART]

Ya, a softer brush will probably make things easier. I use a variation of that brush on stainless liners. Nice flexible rods are also nice to have.

As for the mess without seeing your setup in person, try taping the clean out closed, keep the stove connector hooked up and clean from the top with the softer brush. When it comes time to disconnect and open thing at the bottom, use drop clots on everything and have a good sized shop vac running - one which exchanges a lot of air. Stick the nozzle in whichever hole your working out of and it will catch the dust.

That's how I think I would do it.