Found a 60-year-old pipe wrench in a chimney in Portland last week

I was cleaning out a flue on a house built in the 50s and pulled out this rusted old Stillson pipe wrench wedged in the smoke chamber. Customer said her dad was a handyman and probably dropped it up there decades ago. Anyone else ever find weird stuff stuck in chimneys?

2 comments

2 Comments

leo_carr1324d ago

Wow, that's a heck of a find! I actually read an article online about a guy in Chicago who pulled a meat cleaver out of a chimney from the 1920s. People drop all sorts of stuff down flues over the years and it just stays there until someone cleans it out. I've heard of kids throwing toys down chimneys too, or old tools falling in when someone was working on the roof. It's kind of cool thinking about the history behind it all, like what that wrench was doing there for sixty years. Your customer's dad probably had a few other stories that went up that chimney too.

the_jenny24d ago

That's wild about the meat cleaver! I had a similar thing happen a few years back when I was helping a buddy clean out his grandma's old place. We pulled a whole rusted out cast iron skillet out of the chimney flue. Someone had wedged it in there probably fifty years ago, and it was just sitting there the whole time collecting soot. You're right, it's fun to wonder what stories got dropped down there. Keeps you guessing every time you sweep one out.