Family-owned chimney sweep serving Isleworth

Protecting your room while the flue is brushed

Soot is fine and travels easily, so protecting the room comes before the first brush stroke. Our technicians lay drop cloths from the door to the hearth, cover the floor and furniture closest to the opening, and seal off the fireplace opening while the flue is brushed.

Loosened soot is caught behind that cover and then collected at the hearth, instead of drifting across the room. The seal stays up until the brushing above is finished and the dust has settled.

Tell us about rugs, light fabrics or delicate finishes near the fireplace when you set up the visit. We protect those first and move nothing heavy without asking.

• Drop cloths along the path to the fireplace
• Floor and hearth covered before any cleaning
• Fireplace opening sealed while brushes run
• Work area cleaned before the crew leaves

Cleaning a wood insert from the top down

A wood-burning insert sits inside a masonry fireplace and vents through a liner that runs up the old flue. The insert blocks the path a brush would take from the room, so the liner is usually cleaned from the roof, top down, with the debris collected at the bottom.

At the bottom, the soot lands on the insert's baffle or in its connection to the liner, and it has to be cleared from there. Depending on the model, that means opening the insert and lifting out the baffle, or disconnecting the liner, following the insert maker's instructions.

Our crew sizes the brush to the liner rather than the old masonry flue, and uses bristles that will not scratch stainless steel. For inserts in Isleworth, we confirm the model ahead of the visit so the right steps are known, and a damaged liner section is quoted apart from the cleaning.

Which flue gets swept in a multi-flue chimney

Some chimneys carry more than one flue inside a single stack. From the roof you may see two or three openings side by side. Each serves a different fireplace or appliance, and each holds its own deposits.

Before cleaning, our technicians match every flue to what it serves, by checking the draft from each opening or tracing each one from the top, so the flue brushed is the one connected to the fireplace you use.

The written estimate names each flue by what it serves, such as the living room fireplace or a stove in the family room, so you know which ones are included. A flue that serves nothing, or one you stopped using, is noted too, since it may still need a cap. With several openings on the roof, no Isleworth homeowner pays for a flue that was never touched.

A sweep before you list your home

Buyers and their inspectors look up the chimney. A flue coated in soot, a smoke shelf full of debris or a damper that will not move raises questions that are easy to answer ahead of time.

A sweep before listing cleans the flue, firebox and damper and gives you a dated written record of the work that you can hand to a buyer. It also shows you what needs repair before a buyer's inspector finds it.

Those repair items are listed separately, so you can choose which to fix, which to price into the sale and which to disclose. Timing helps too, since booking the sweep before the listing goes up leaves room to finish any repair you decide to make. Sellers in Isleworth get the same free inspection and written estimate as anyone else.