I had the nastiest, stinkiest call of my career!

Glenn Harrison_2

I went on a call last week that was the worst call of my career. Call came in as house is way to humid and heat coming out of chimney. First thing I noticed as I walked in the door was a horrible rancid smell that made me nauseous. Check my CO detector, 0 in house. House sitter had turned off the boiler earlier. Go to boiler and find this:

Glenn Harrison_2

I then pulled the chimney,

expecting to find a mess of birds. Instead, I found this sticking out of the flue where it attached to the chimney. (and Yes that is a RACOON Tail Sticking out and more blood running down the flue damper). Couldn't believe it. His head was up near the elbow (didn't have the guts to look at what was left of his head).His body 100% blocked the boiler and water heater flue piping.

Bruce_6

so

that looks like a nasty job! wonder how much CO was in the house before they turned off the boiler?

Mark Eatherton1

EEEuuuwwww.....

Bet he don't do THAT again...

I can hear Granny in the background now, "Jethrow, go fetch me some hot water, we got us some VITTLES!"

Tops anything I've ever found...

ME

Glenn Harrison_2

I wound up replacing,

all of the boiler flue piping, the motorized flue damper, as it was gummed up with blood, the tee, and the water heater flue. I also got a spill switch kit and attached it to the draft hood so the boiler will shut down instead of dumping flue gasses.

The good news about this is, customer has a service aggrement so we know the boiler is in good clean condition with low CO output, the homeowners were on vacation, so nobody was exposed to the little CO that leaked out except the house sitter that came in, found the problem, shut down the boiler, and got out within 10 minutes, and the only thing damaged was the flue pipe. Could have been a lot worse. I also told them to have a chimney sweep check the chimney and put an animal proof cap on the boiler chimney.

I tell you, the blood wasn't so bad, the animal made me sick, but the worst was the smell of dead cooked racoon carcass. I had to wear a full respirator and lots of rubber gloves, and I still got so sick to my stomach that I didn't eat lunch or dinner, and if I had eaten lunch, I'm sure I would have lost my cookies.

If I NEVER deal with a mess like that again, I will be quite happy.

Oh, here's a pic of the job competed:

Joe C

Labor saver

Don't let it puff up to long in there,You'll have to re-crimp the end of that pipe.

Murph'_4

LOOKS LIKE YOU GOT....

SOME COON JUICE ON your lens !!



Murph' (ick)

Arthur

Racoon in Flue

Hi,
How did it get past the cowl on the flue, or don't you fit cowls on the flue over there ?
Luckily we don't have racoons but we have possums which eat our native bush and carry diseases like TB. Some bright spark imported them from Australia way back in the early days of this country. Now they are are no 1 pest. But we always fit cowls on our boilers and it is required on natural draft gas burners.

Mark Hunt

It is amazing


what those little critters will do to commit suicide!

Nice touch adding the spill switch.

Mark H

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

BillW@honeywell

Count your blessings...

It wasn't a skunk!

jim sokolovic

Found at cat like that...

in some old lady's oil boiler flue pipe. Must have climbed into the barometric damper - she had over 20 of them in the basement alone. It was nothing but a burnt hair covered pile of glop (with a tail) that had to be scraped out of the pipe. No breathing apparatus to minimize the misery of the task for me. The smell was vomit-inducing, for sure! Cat litter boxes alone are a peeve of mine. If someone has a litter box near the boiler, I call them down to move it themselves, before any work gets done!

Glenn Harrison_2

LOL Murph'

It's actually a scan of a Polaroid. I know, need to move into the 21st century, but the camera and film is free from work so I use it for now.

Glenn Harrison_2

Cowl???

I'm assuming your refering to a cap or screen on the top of the chimney? There was apparently a screen around the top at one time, but it since disapeared somehow, so mister racoon crawled down the 7" chimney, into the 7" flue and got stopped by the last elbow and flue damper. I do admit I feel a little sorry for him, I just hope he was asphixiated before he was cooked or bled to death.

There will definatly be a professional grade cap added to this chimney chase as well as the fireplace chase next to it. Probably already done.

Glenn Harrison_2

Couldn't have been much,

as I arrived within 2 hours of the call. The boiler checked out at less than 30 ppm in the stack when I was all done.

kevin coppinger_4

it puts new....

meaning to the word "spill" switch...kpc

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Glenn Harrison_2

Bill, if you had smelled the smell,

of that cooked racoon, you might just debate that. I have smelled skunk spray before and there was very little difference other than skunk smell is MUCH stronger, but both are equally BAD.

Glenn Harrison_2

That whole section of flue went in the garbage

That flue pipe became the racoons casket. He was in there way to tight and I didn't feel like playing with racoon blood with who knows what growing in it any more than I had to.

Glenn Harrison_2

Jim, you have my sympathies

I don't even want to think about doing that without the respirator. It didn't completely remove the smell, but made it weak enough to be bareable. I didn't even think of trying to remove him from the flue pipe. He was in there tight and stuck on the zip screws with blood everywhere. Just started with new.

kevin coppinger_4

sometimes....

it cheaper and easier to replace than to repair...kpc

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Al Letellier

coon in the flue

I don't envy you any on that one, but I'd take that anyday over a live, 5 lb wharf rat staring me in the face when I opened a cleanout cover. Thank God my two foot Ridgid was quicker and harder than his head. It was in a restaurant basement about 20 years ago, and I've never set foot in that place again, especially to eat. And I do love to eat!!!

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

Glenn Harrison_2

Al, ya got me beat there!

I would have to agree to take a dead one over a live one, especially a RAT.

Mad Dog

Excellent! hee hee

how come I never get that! lucky????? Mad Dog

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Contractor"

tombig

Geez Glenn!

Makes me glad I'm not in the book for service. I guess a coon'll crawl down one of mine someday. The blood on the boiler is hollywood-worthy. It must have been an off cycle when it drew it's last breath.

Patrick Powers

I can sympathize

I had a squirrel in the smoke pipe elbow of a oil boiler. What a nasty smell. Got a call from the customer for a cleaning, the fire department was there earlier in the day because smoke detectors were going off. Did'nt need a cleaning. Fully cooked (with a nice high stack temp.) squirrel approx. 7" diameter in a 6" smoke pipe elbow.

NO BLOOD THOUGH!

Glenn Harrison_2

Yah, kind of makes that

bird in the flue damper pale by comparison huh.

jim sokolovic

Squirrel mummies...

in the chimney base were like finding a pot of gold to my dad - we would keep them for the day, bringing them into each customer's house and "planting" them into each chimney for the customer to see - sold all of the chimney caps on the truck on those days. I'm sure he was annoyed that the cat carcass couldn't be salvaged for the same promotional duty!