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How to Find a Good Chimney Sweep — PART TWO
In my last post, we talked about how to find a good chimney sweep to hire in your area. Now that you’ve found one, what happens when they get to your house? What can you look for when he (or she, although female sweeps are still pretty rare) shows up to work? How can...
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Beware of Chimney Scams
Here's something most homeowners don't know--the chimney sweeping industry is largely unregulated and unlicensed. Although standards have certainly become better in the last few years, we are still a group of contractors that are mostly “under the radar”....
read moreThe Three Levels of Chimney Inspection
Do you think chimney sweeping and inspection is guesswork? Do you wonder what your sweep is looking for when he stares up into your flue? Do you ask what you're paying for when you ask someone to inspect your chimney? NFPA211 (our standard for fireplaces and flues)...
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The Problems With Unlined Chimney Flues
What is a liner, and why do I need one? That's a common question I hear. Briefly, a liner is placed within a chimney to guide the noxious and caustic by-products of combustion out of your home as smoothly as possible without interacting with the brickwork of the...
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Your Fireplace is not for Heat!
Some hard truths here, folks. Your fireplace is not a heat source. In fact, your fireplace costs you money every time you use it. An open, masonry fireplace consumes 200-600 cubic feet of air per minute to function. Over the course of an evening, it may use all the...
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Why Do You Charge for Inspections?
“Aren’t you just looking at it?” That’s what I hear from customers when I tell them I have a small fee for my initial inspection. Well, the short answer is yes. When I’m performing a Level One inspection, I am ‘just looking at it’. That’s NFPA211’s definition of a...
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