Hot take: I stopped brushing flues top down after a job in Portland showed me the light
Last Tuesday I was on a two story colonial in Portland with a nasty creosote glaze in the smoke chamber and I almost set up my rods from the roof like always. The homeowner mentioned her last sweep spent 3 hours up there and still had chunks falling in the firebox, so I ran the brush from the bottom up with a drill whip instead and pulled a coffee can worth of crust out in 20 minutes. Has anyone else ditched the roof setup for bottom up work on glazed flues, or am I just getting lazy in my old age?
Same thing happens in every trade, the old way works fine until you see a better way work faster. I've noticed it with mowing crews too, guys who've done it one way for years won't switch even when the new way saves them hours. You're not lazy, you just got tired of wasting your own time.