How To Chimney Sweep
A chimney sweep will at minimum inspect and clean your fireplace and chimney.
How to chimney sweep. The inspection and cleaning might begin inside up on the roof or both and may or may not involve a camera. It doesnt matter what type of chimney you have brick clay twin wall or lined they will all need regular sweeping. So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep From The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake from his work Songs of Innocence and of Experience 1795.
Sweeping a chimney can be done top to bottom or bottom to top. Sweeps will prepare the space ahead of cleaning the chimney before running handheld brushes through the chimney or flue to remove blockages and remove creosote. While gas isnt a solid fuel that gives off smoke its still an important safety measure.
With the HEPA vacuum on we insert a spiral wire brush into the flue using expandable rods and slowly progress upwards through the liner and flue towards the chimney cap. This green wood doesnt burn cleanly and sends a lot of. A word of warning here is to make sure you do not try to sweep the chimney for at least 12 hours after the fire has gone out.
Use a dustpan and brush andor a. To ensure that homeowners receive a certified sweep at every job all chimney sweeping companies promoting themselves as CSIA Certified or displaying the CSIA Certified Sweep logo are required to have a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep sign off on every job. If your chimney was last cleaned two years ago a sweep may have more work on their hands and take closer to two hours.
With some as young as four or five perhaps not quite. That will take an hour or two depending on where you live the condition of your chimney and the speed of the sweep hired. Soot can stay hot for a long while.
Firstly cover everything in the room with dust sheets and turn your hoover on. To locate one of the more than 1800 active CSIA Certified Chimney Sweeps across North. Do Gas Stoves Need a Chimney Sweep.
Attach a rod to the brush and insert the brush down the chimney moving it up and down to clean the flue. The equipment you need to sweep a chimney is really cheap so save money by doing it yourself. Yes if you have a gas stove or fireplace your chimney will still need sweeping but less often.
Remove the brush disassembling the rods as you take them from the flue. During the smoke test have a friend go outside and watch the pots on the stacks. Certified chimney sweeps are trained to recognize chimney deterioration and venting problems and can assess your fireplace chimneys condition.
If smoke comes out of more than one pot you have a leakage. Add more rods as you lower the brush to clean farther down the flue. Children were used for chimney sweeping due to their diminutive size that enabled them to fit into the very narrow and enclosed spaces that required cleaning inaccessible to an adult.
A driving license is vital to help you get from location to location with your equipment. Take a flashlight and peer inside the chimney flute. A full-faced powered air-purifying respirator PARR is essential for the chimney sweeps safety because of the exposure to carcinogens.
Youll need to work well at heights and be physically fit. A gas fire flue acts as an exhaust pipe that removes. If you see moisture bubbling out the ends of the logs when theyre burning the wood is wet.
Have the hose lying on the hearth. You can also choose to join the Guild of Master Chimney Sweeps or the National Association of Chimney Sweeps for extra credibility with your customers. Scrub the interior of the flue thoroughly.
If its 18-inch thick or thicker. Reattach the chimney cap. On the roof you may need to remove a chimney cap or other type of fitting covering the chimney.
The steps for sweeping your own chimney. If this is the case call in a certified chimney sweep as soon as possible. Chimney sweeps use a variety of manual and power brushes in their work.
Check out my in-depth demonstration on how to sweep a chimneyH. A standard chimney sweep tool kit typically includes a wire brush a polypropylene brush smoke chamber brush an industrial vacuum and chemical cleaners. Use a pencil or plastic knife to scrape off a bit of the creosote that has accumulated on the side of the chimney.
