Important information about your chimney sweeping appointment
To make life easy for you, we’ve taken the time to put together in one place what you need to know about your sweep. These few things really help. They keep our work standard high and costs as low as possible, and saves you time.
Before your appointment
What do I need to do before my sweep?
Let us have some information that I need
There’s a few things you need to tell me, including:
Avoid using your fire the night before. This helps keep your devices and flue are cool enough for us to sweep safely. If you do need to use your fire the evening before, please allow it to go out by 8pm.
Keep it tidy and ready to work on
Please clear your device of any ash, etc., and ensure the area in front is clear of any ornamentation. This lets us access what’s needed and gives us a reasonable amount of space to work.
Allow access to power
Our professional vacuum requires access to a standard three-pin plug socket. Please make sure at least one is available for us to use. The cable on our kit is reasonably long, so it doesn’t need to be right next to your device.
What do you need to know about accessing my property?
Finding your property
If your property is difficult to find (and this is our first visit), please provide us with directions or landmarks. You can also give us a What3Words location.
Parking
If there are any restrictions or limitations with access or parking that we should be aware of, please let us know. This is really helpful as the equipment needed to ensure a clean and tidy job is heavy. Please note that we have a trade parking permit that allows us to park in most residents’ parking spaces across Devon.
We confirm your appointment date as soon as we contact eachother, so you’ll have as much notice as possible.
How we schedule our work to make things easy for you
We operate on a rolling one-month schedule, so we can accommodate your needs as soon as possible within each month. Straight away, we can confirm the date of your sweep. Then, usually about a week before, we’ll confirm the time. We try to be flexible and will do our best to accommodate your needs.
What about busy periods?
The time of year influences how quickly your appointment can be scheduled.
September to December are really busy months for good chimney sweeps, so we’re working hard to help as many people as possible. Try to give us as much notice as you can if you need a sweep during this time, and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.
The period between April and August is much quieter, so we have more advance availability in our diary. So if you can, it’s worth thinking about scheduling your sweep for this time.
Can I change my appointment even if we’ve already agreed it?
The day
Absolutely! We want a great working relationship with you. So we always try to work around you as much as we can. Try to keep your appointment day if you can, as changes can hurt small family businesses like ours. However if something happens that means it really now doesn’t work for you, please try to give us as much notice as you can. This enables us to help you as best as we can.
Don’t forget, lots of people are happy to arrange door key access for us. This means we can still complete their sweep even if they’re still stuck at the office.
The time
We always try to accommodate our customers as much as we can. However as you’d imagine, because we need to arrange our work and driving routes in advance, our appointments often need to be scheduled in a specific order. This means our appointment times can’t be changed unneccessarily without passing on increased charges for fuel and time.
Don’t worry if you’re not able to be there in person, as we’re happy to let ourselves in – just let us know where the key will be. And if something like a family emergency comes up, please let us know and we’ll do what we can.
If there’s a problem and I need to contact you on the day of my sweep, what do I do?
Please text or WhatsApp us, as understandably we only check calls and voicemails when we get home in the evening after work. We’ll only be able to check messages when it’s safe and our vehicle is stopped.
For a small, local, family business like ours, a missed appointment is never just a missed appointment. We work to pay our bills and put food on our table. When we arrive at your address as arranged with you, we’re already ‘out of pocket’ for our time and fuel. (And of course, our time could’ve been offered to another paying customer.)
So we’re sure you can understand why missed appointments are charged at the full rate, unless an arrangement has been made. However, please know that we’d really rather not do this. Of course we’d prefer to do a good job for you, as we’ve arranged together.
Expect Ewan to turn up looking a little like a pack animal! Chimney sweeps need a lot of kit to make sure the job is thorough and clean. When he enters your home, Ewan will put on shoe covers to protect your carpets. He’ll also set up a work area that includes dust sheets and tarpaulin, to make sure his kit isn’t sitting directly on your floor. This will also give him a safe area to work on, that keeps the rest of your space clean.
Focused whilst working
Whilst he’s working, Ewan will be running his vacuum cleaner to keep on top of the resulting soot and dust. (Yes, it looks a bit like a Henry! That’s because Ewan’s Numatic HZ350-2 is Henry’s big brother. But unlike a smaller Henry vacuum cleaner, it’s designed specifically for safely handling hazardous materials like soot and asbestos.)
Ewan will also be sweeping the chimney using equipment which can make a bit of noise, depending on the kit he needs to use. And just to let you know, he gets very focused when he’s working.
All of this means that he’s probably going to forget that you’re there, so don’t worry. And expect him to jump out of his skin when you enter the room. Look out for it, because it’s really funny.
Duration of works
On average, the job is going to last between half an hour and an hour, depending on a few factors (such as type of device present, access to the flue system, equipment required, use of the chimney since your last sweep, height of the chimney and even whether this is his first or subsequent visits); however, if a dreaded birds nest is found to be present this can take much longer (don’t worry, Ewan will discuss this with you before work commences if this is found to be the case).
Whilst it doesn’t really pose any threat to you, because of the volumes of soot we have to deal with every day, our health is at risk. High exposure to soot over many years makes us vulnerable to some forms of cancer, which is why we wear nitrile gloves, long sleeve shirts with under-sleeves and trousers even when the weather is really hot. The all black uniform is not a fashion choice, it is a practical colour because, let’s face it, chimney sweeping is a dirty job…the fact that we look good in all black is just a happy coincidence!
In addition to cancers, our respiratory system can be adversely affected by the soot, ash and dust generated by the cleaning process, which is why we also wear the big face mask. Ewan doesn’t mind the mask though, he likes to pretend he’s Darth Vader whilst he’s wearing it!
Whilst we love animals, we’ll need them out of the room whilst we’re working. This helps ensure there are no mishaps, keeps your pets safe, and means we can complete our work in good time for you. However, if you have a dog please let us meet them before or after we’ve carried out your work, as we’d love to say hello!
This will be issued following your sweep and after payment.
Once all our equipment is packed away, we’ll take the time to go through the certificate with you. We’ll also talk about your chimney’s sweeping requirements.
We want you to get the most from our visit, so we’ll also share anything we’ve spotted that you need to know about to keep your chimney healthy. This could be anything from advice about repairs, to best practice for your home’s setup.
We take regulations seriously. So we’re registered with the local authority as ‘lower tier waste carriers’. This means that we are legally only able to take away the soot and detritus held within our vacuum cleaner.
As your waste is your responsbility, here’s some info to help you decide what to do with it.
It can go in your bin
Soot is classified as household waste, so it should be disposed of into your black wheelie bin, unless you want to use it elsewhere. If you’d like to do that, please let us know and I’ll happily bag it securely for you, ready to go in your bin.
You can reuse it at home
Some folks like to use soot as a garden treatment. Let us know before your sweep if you’d like to use it this way, and we’ll take steps to keep the soot uncontaminated for you.
Don’t forget that the fuel you use can affect the resulting soot. So if you want to use it in your garden, make sure you only burn what you want to go back into the ground. This means good quality, untreated and unpainted wood, and definitely no coal! The soot will need to be allowed to naturally rot down on your compost pile for a year or so.
Don’t worry. On our first visit, we’ll talk about the sweep frequency your chimney needs in the future. We’ll happily guide you, as this should be what your insurance company says (especially if your property is thatched), and best practice as recommeded by the NACS. It’s usually based on the type of fuel you burn, how much you use your device, and anything specifically required by your insurance policy.
Handy reminders
Once your future sweep frequency has been agreed, you’ll be sent a reminder each year. This will be around a month in advance of the date. However, if you receive your reminder and your sweep is not needed for some reason, let us know and we’ll defer it for you until next time.
Yes please! We love receiving compliments for our work, and personal referrals and recommendations are always appreciated. So feel free to tell other people you know – your family, friends, neighbours and colleagues – even that random chap down the pub who bought you a pint that time!
In addition to word-of-mouth, some areas and roads have community social media groups and chats (like WhatsApp, Facebook, NextDoor, and so on). If that’s the case where you are, please share our details if you feel happy doing so.