Look what I saw in a chimney

RayWohlfarth

Not sure why they needed this in a chimney. Perhaps it used to be coal fired. The boiler flue is right above this.

Mad Dog_2

Oh...MY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Scary. The worst chimney base I ever cleaned out was in My Church that hadn't been looked at in years. Pull the Boiler breech.....a Pile of Dead dessicated pidgeons. Guess how many??? 3? No , 6? No. 10, ? NO!!!!! 13 dead pidgeons. Chimney cap had fallen off and the toasty pidgeons perched up on the terra cotta top, got slowly lulled to sleep from the CO, and bombs away..fell to bottom of chimney base. Got a picture on my old computer. Mad Dog

RayWohlfarth

@Mad Dog_2 That would be gross. I was always told that dead birds have diseases and should be avoided

Bob Harper

You can get histoplasmosis from pigeons and raccoon roundworm from, well, coons. Then, there are the usual fleas and other nasties. The sulfur from oil or coal along with the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from creosote, if any, should prompt you to wear a HEPA full face respirator with an organic vapor cartridge any time you have to stick your face in or close to these flues. The "climbing boys" who swept chimneys in London in the 1700's were dying of scrotal cancer in their early 20's. A London surgeon noted the coincidence and wrote up the first occupationally linked diseases. Eventually, the practice of sending starving kids up chimneys to hand scrape and brush flues was replaced with rods and brushes. You can still get rattan rods with brass couplings that use a Euro-thread such as found on mop handles. The brushes have a wooden headstock with long fibers, When you use an oversized brush, the bristles bend along the wall. As you spin the rod, it wipes and scrapes the walls of light soot and creosote.
Side note: check out the legend: Fred Dibnah here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffv8YeoeeM This should be shown to every kid to understand what real men are made of.

RayWohlfarth

wow thanks Bob Thats crazy OSHA or the European counterpart would have field day with him Can't believe that

HomerJSmith

I don't understand a word he said. He doesn't get paid enough. Remarkable!

RayWohlfarth

@HomerJSmith There is no amount of money for me to do that work LOL

Mad Dog_2

Handling 🐦 birds...When I was about 13 my Older brother , Big Bart, heard noises under his window AC.  We lifted it out and found a nest w baby birds. I gently took them and we placed high in a bush.  All of the sudden I look at my hands, and I've 
Got hundreds on tiny mites on them...yuck....Those pigeons were fricasseed -well done.  They were not even soft anymore. Disease was cooked away.  Never had an issue.  I don't remember if I used gloves. Probably not...but trust me when I deal with sewage water or any pathogens. I'm  gloving up Mad Dog 🐕

retiredguy

This happened many years ago at a Pittsburgh, Pa. city school where the company I worked for, had the maintenance contract for many years, they found a charred body in the common breaching for the 3 boilers. After an extensive search for the identity of that person, the consensus was that it was missing teen who had a long "rap sheet" of thefts that may have been looking for a way into the school building. I was not there, nor was I the one that found the body. It still gives me the creeps when I think about that incident.

RayWohlfarth

@Mad Dog_2 Yech I probably did the same thing
@retiredguy i head about that What a terrible way to go

Paul Pollets

I own parrots and have for 30 years. They're remarkably clean and have no cooties. I keep them away from chimneys.

CLamb

Mad Dog_2 said:

All of the sudden I look at my hands, and I've 
Got hundreds on tiny mites on them...yuck....Those pigeons were fricasseed -well done.

I suspect mites are endemic among wild birds. They cannot penetrate the skin of humans but can irritate it. I had a parakeet whose cage I put outside so it could commune with wild birds catch mites. I won't do that again.

RayWohlfarth

@Paul Pollets @CLamb Wisdom passed on thanks

EBEBRATT-Ed

My aunt was in her 80s at the time, still working at the local donut shop where she worked for 30 years and was complaining about gas (combustion fumes) in her house. I met her son my cousin who thought she was going nutty. We ran the furnace and everything checked out ok and then shut it down and looked up the chimney which was clear.

He left and went up stairs to tell his mother she was nuts when I thought what about the gas fired water heater? I twisted the thermostat to make it call and it lit, and the fumes rolled out of the draft hood.

I shut it off and pulled down the 4" smoke pipe which was quite heavy to find a dead squirrel in it.