Bought a $60 chimney camera off Amazon and couldn't see anything beyond the first bend

The image was so grainy and the light was so weak I might as well have stuck my phone up there. Ended up borrowing my uncle's old mirror setup and that worked fine. Anyone else get burned by cheap inspection gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_wright8d ago

Whoa hold on, I gotta disagree a little bit here. I get what you're saying about cheap gear being frustrating but $60 is basically the bottom of the barrel for a reason. You can't expect a camera that costs less than a nice dinner to do the same job as something that costs a few hundred bucks. That mirror trick is great for a quick look but it's not gonna help you see if there's a crack or a bird nest deeper in the flue. Sometimes you gotta pay a little more to get something that actually works right.

benclark8d ago

Right there with you @grace_wright, I've burned sixty bucks on one of those cheap scopes and the picture was so grainy I couldn't tell if it was a crack or just a smudge. Save your money and borrow a decent one from a buddy instead.