Mystery Writer’s Mystery Solved?
I was concerned that I’d have to climb up onto my house roof and be this jolly fat man would have to clean out the chimney’s soot and creosote. I know my kids have threatened before to kill me if I didn’t kill myself from a fall and somehow survived. I cleaned the chimney late last year and didn’t think it would need to be attended to so early this season. I tried earlier to burn a few papers but the smoke filtered back into my basement. That meant the chimney was clogged not allowing the smoke to rise. I knew the gasket on the door of my furnace needed replaced, but the chimney should still have had a good draw.
The gasket is ordered and I decided I’d remove the old worn one and be ready to cement the new one into place when it came. Once the door and the gasket were removed, I decided to clean the furnace pipe from the wood burner to the chimney flue. Soot has a way of building up in the pipe. It too needs cleaned regularly. Tapping on the pipe, I loosened the soot collecting it into a bucket. I cleaned the connecting pipe as far into the chimney as I could reach.
When I finished that, I thought I might be able to remove the clog or at least lessen it from the clean-out door at the base of my chimney. I picked up a bucket, a small shovel, and a long handled screwdriver to attack the sooty buildup. After pulling out a few plants that crowd the base on the chimney that blocked the cleanout door from opening wide, I began the task of removing the black soot that was already loosened and had fallen to the floor of the cleanout pit.
I was in for a surprise. I found the answer to two mysteries. As I began to scoop out the soot from the bottom of the chimney, I found grass and sticks in the debris. It puzzled me at first then I remembered that during the summer, I found a bird in my basement, twice. I’ve never had a bird in my house before. I wasn’t able to find any place where the bird made an entrance. I’m still not sure how it got inside, but the twigs and grass at the bottom cleanout seemed to be the beginnings of a nest that was started inside of the chimney. Once the soot and grass was removed, the draw on my chimney had returned and I don’t think this old fat man will need to mount the roof, yet.