REALFLO 33ft Chimney Brush rod kit,Electrical Rotary Drill Drive Sweeping Cleaning Tool Kits with Nylon Flexible Rods (10 rods)

I have a cape style house with a basement and 2 stories above. The kit worked amazingly. I started burning wood that wasn't seasoned to my liking and was concerned about creosote build up. Looking up through my clean out I could see it might be worth cleaning but I didn't want to spend what it would cost to have someone come do it professionally so I purchased this product. Product arrived in two day, I let the stove go out, took the stove pipe off and started cleaning. Took me about 30 minutes from start to finish and it did a great job! Looks clean as a whistle. Even ran a section through my stove pipe and cleaned that in great shape. Well worth the minimal investment, seem durable and gives me piece of mind going into the second half of winter. The only down side, and I'm saying this just to make folks aware, is that it was difficult to disconnect the sections of rods. They do provide a tool to help push the button down to disconnect but it still took some work and was a balancing act with just one person. With that being said I would much rather have it too tight than coming apart in the chimney. I am so impressed by this product that I decided to write my first ever review....

The good: Spent $90 and cleaned 2 flues, which locally would have cost me $275. The flexible rods were thicker than I expected and were easy to attach. The connectors seem to be high quality stainless sreel. My 3/8" powered (plug in) drill was strong enough. Would buy again.The bad: The spring-loaded nipples that attach the shafts together get jammed from the rotational force, so I had to tap them lightly with a hammer to free them up. Even though I did move the unit constantly up and down while sweeping, about 8 of the 24 trimmer lines on the head broke off. There are no instructions for replacing the trimmer line. The kit contains an allen wrench for taking out the set screw in the head, and that freed up the top bundle of trimmer lines. The other bundles are too tight to free by hand, and I didn't try forcing them (yet). The bundles are held together with a crimped metal sleeve, so you would need to force that open to replace the line, then recrimp.

The pop-in attachment fitting has me worried. On the second attachment one of the fittings popped loose. Fortunately it was within reach and reattached. If this had come loose 10 feet up the chimney it would have been a big problem and likely required a pro to fix ($). I didn’t have another section pop loose and the tool made quick work of cleaning my 28’ chimney stack.

I have seen some reviews that state the item broke on first use. I cleaned both flues at our recently purchased house that was loaded with creosote. The item worked great on both and had no issues at all using a Dewalt cordless drill. My advice if cleaning from the inside is as follows. Have a shop vac handy to suck up the dust that comes back down the flue. Before cleaning the flue remove the damper in the throat of the fireplace if required to reach the smoke shelf. You will have creosote drop and gather on the smoke shelf and it needs to be cleaned out. We had the rectangular damper and I just removed the mounting bolts and slid it out of the hinges to remove. That allowed easy access to the smoke shelf with the shop vac hose. If you don’t access the roof to remove the chimney cap slide the rods all the way up until you feel the cap. Come down about 1.5 foot and start cleaning working your way down. This item is suitable for clay/tile lined flues, or metal flues.

As I had hoped for I was able to clean my chimney through the clean out door at the bottom of the chimney. The rods were able to bend and make there way up the 7 inch stainless pipe. I had removed the chimney cap so the whips did not get damaged by the legs on the cap. I marked the rods so that next time I can leave the cap on. All in all it cleaned well. Had a bit of dust to deal with but I think I can make a cover with a pipe welded on to minimize that issue. When I cleaned out the bottom of the chimney I found three of the whips had broken off. That is my only negative. Some folks had complained of the difficulty in separating the rods. I used a nail punch sized to fit in the hole and it worked well. Now I need to know where I can get some of the replacement whips. Any help out there?

This product has led to nothing but anger and frustration. I honestly think the people who made this should be embarrassed and apologize for such a terribly designed product.When I purchased this, I read all of the reviews about how the rods could come apart if you weren't careful to lock them. So, I was hyper aware of that and checked everything twice before sending it up my chimney. What the reviews didn't mention is that it doesn't matter if they are "properly" locked before sending them up, because the pin mechanism is too short and these things WILL come detached if the brush meets a little a resistance.So, long story short: I spent the better part of 3 hours trying to get a stuck brush out of my chimney. It's still up there and I'm going to have to shell out who-knows-how-much money for a professional to come in (with a real chimney sweep tool) to fix this mess.So, to recap. I spent $70 to waste 3 hours of my time and create a problem that's going to cost more to fix than if I hadn't bought this stupid thing at all.To other potential buyers: DON'T BUY THIS.To the manufacturer: FIX THE DESIGN!! Make the connection pin mechanism longer so the rods don't come detached in people's chimneys!

Seems durable. Cleaned my wood stove pipe easily. The rods flex to make it easy and are durable. Chimney cleaning service quoted me 350$ to clean my chimney pipe. Huge savings if you can climb up on your roof

Worked very well with my Dewalt 20v drill. Some of the connection points had to be reamed out a little more for the lock buttons to snap in properly but other than that it was great. Worth the money so far.

This kit worked better than I expected. I have a 30 foot chimney and it had no issue going to the top. I should have purchased this year's ago.