The Process

We start out by preparing to go into and on top of your home. Our sweeps will come to your door and introduce themselves, and make sure it is ok to come in, they then get to work by removing anything that may be in the way and covering your furniture to ensure nothing gets soot on it. If there are two sweeps one will bring the HEPA-certified ash vacuum into your home and the other will get on the roof. The technician will get the appropriate size ladder and will use a ladder guard if necessary to prevent our ladder from leaning against your gutters.

The one inside will place the vacuum cleaner hose inside the flue of your fireplace and turn it on, while the one on the roof chooses the correct size and type of brush for your type of chimney, choosing the right brush for the job is important as it will affect the sweep if a brush is too big it will be too difficult to push and pull through the flue and if it is too small it will not get all the creosote and soot off of the flue. As the technician on the roof pushes the soot and creosote down the chimney the vacuum will suck up the debris and catch it before it can reach your fireplace.

Once this is done the inside technician will begin to clean out your fireplace, by cleaning the smoke shelf (if your fireplace has one) then vacuuming and brushing the walls and bottom of the inside hearth as well as vacuuming the outside hearth. They will then clean up by removing tarps and taking their equipment to the truck.

After a while, the dust inside the chimney that was not gathered by the vacuum will settle and no matter how long we keep the vacuum on or how hard we try this will always happen, there will be a small amount of debris that will drop out when you open your damper to use the fireplace. It does not mean it was not cleaned properly, it is a by-product of air flowing in your chimney moving around particles that the vacuum could not get out of the air.

At that point, your sweep is finished cleaning the fireplace and will answer any questions you may have for them and take your payment. The entire process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. The length of time it takes depends on how many stories your home is ( the longer the flue the more time it will take), how much build-up there is in the flue and how much preparation they need to do before the cleaning.

If you would like to speed the process up or just help, we ask that you remove any furniture away from the fireplace that is 3 feet or closer to the fireplace, Also anything on the mantle will need to be removed as well as any decorations on either side. Lawn furniture, decorations, or tables that may be in the way of our ladder placement will need to be removed as well and we ask that you do not have any fire burning or hot embers when we arrive. As it will delay the sweep from doing their job while they wait for your fireplace to cool down. We hope this helps to explain how we sweep and what is required.