Chimney Sweeping & Cleaning
Creosote, soot, and blockages cleared out of your flue.
Every fire you burn leaves something behind. Wood smoke cools on the way up the flue and deposits creosote — first as a dust, then a hard crust, eventually a shiny glaze. Sweeping is how that comes back out. It's the most routine chimney job there is, and it's also the one where you have the least way of knowing whether it was done properly, which is why we photograph the flue before and after and show you both.
Signs you'd actually notice
- Smoke pushing back into the room when you light a fire
- A sharp, tarry smell from the fireplace, worst in humid weather
- Black, flaky, or shiny buildup visible inside the flue
- Fires that are hard to start or won't stay going
- More than a year, or a full burning season, since the last sweep
What happens on the visit
Seal the room off first
Drop cloths go down and a HEPA vacuum gets sealed to the fireplace opening before any brush goes in. The soot ends up in the machine, not on your hearth rug.
Sweep the full length of the flue
Rods and brushes sized to your flue, worked from the firebox and the top as needed, until the walls are back to bare masonry or bare liner.
Clear the smoke chamber and shelf
The area just above the damper collects the heaviest deposits and gets skipped by anyone working fast. It's usually where the real buildup is. If the smoke chamber's parging has broken down and left rough, open masonry, we'll tell you — that surface is why it keeps loading up.
Run the Level 1 inspection while we're in there
Since the flue is now clean, we can actually see it. We check the liner, damper, firebox, crown, and cap and tell you what we found.
Show you the photos
Before and after, on our phone, standing in your living room. If something needs attention we point at it rather than describing it.
Why it matters
Creosote burns. That's the whole reason this job exists. A flue with enough buildup in it can turn an ordinary fire in your firebox into a fire inside your chimney — and a chimney fire cracks liners and damages masonry even when nobody notices it happening. A blocked flue is the other half of it: whatever can't go up goes back into the room, and that includes carbon monoxide.
Related
While we're up there
Recent work
What the work looks like
Our own photographs, from real jobs. Before and after where we have both ends of it.
Book a sweep, an inspection, or a look at whatever's worrying you
Tell us what's going on and we'll call you back to agree a time. If you'd rather sort it now, the phone is faster.