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How to find a certified Chimney Sweep? | Kiasalon

By November 2, 2017No Comments

When cool breezes start coming, many of the house owners start firing up their fireplaces, furnaces and wood stoves, but many a time they end up having performance issues with the stoves because of the only one reason, ‘Lack of maintenance’. Yes, Chimneys need attention as any other household appliances.

Chimney maintenance needs to be done professionally for higher performances and flawless working of the equipment. And finding a good Chimney Sweep is difficult.

Here, we are going to tell you how to find a chimney sweep.

The best Chimney Sweep is trained from The Guild of Master Chimney Sweep in the UK. So we suggest you that your Chimney Sweep should be trained from the same organization.

Chimney Cleaning is a National safety issue because most of the times, house owners lose their properties because of Chimney Fires. If you haven’t had your Chimney serviced since the last winter, it is a good time to call a certified chimney sweep now and it is important to choose a chimney sweep that is certified and has plenty of experience.

We recommend you should ask the Chimney Sweep following questions or have a look at their website for the following things:

  1. How much experience have they got?
  2. Are they ready to offer the current references?
  3. Does the Sweep or Company have any unresolved complaints against them?
  4. Does the Sweep or Company carry valid business liability insurance?
  5. Does the Company or Sweep have a proper license to carry out the cleaning stuff?

We also recommend that you choose a Chimney Sweep who offers video scanning of the chimney as part of their service. So it should remain a transparent business.

While considering Chimney Sweep’s skills, they should know the following things:

  1. Standard Chimney and Fireplace building practices
  2. Safety hazards associated with the job
  3. Codes and Standards
  4. Clearances to combustibles
  5. How to properly identify chimney damages
  6. Proper maintenance methods.

A good practice to find a certified Chimney Sweep is to check out several sweeps’ websites. Look for someone who uses proper ladders and full protection provides written reports along with the proper invoice and has better testimonials from homeowners.

When called to clean a Chimney Sweep should protect the home from soot and dust with tarps and vacuum, do a visual inspection first, sweep the flue from the top and bottom, inspect the flue and smoke chamber using an internal camera system, and if accessible, inspect the top of the chimney.

If issues are found, the sweep should be able to explain those problems thoroughly and offer repair options if necessary. Cost should not be the biggest factor when looking for a good Chimney Sweep, in fact, the higher priced sweeps are most likely the best at their jobs. Higher fees show that a Chimney Sweep has a proper insurance and possess the certified equipment and spends time each year training to keep up with the latest code and conducts in the market. We are not blaming fresher people in this industry but these are the facts on which a common homeowner can rely.

Another important thing homeowners consider while calling any Chimney Sweep is to keep themselves safe from frauds and cheats.

Chimney cleaning and repair scammers tend to follow the patterns of those in other home improvement industries, luring homeowners via phone solicitations, door-to-door sales pitches or ads offering too-good-to-be-true prices and preying on fear and lack of knowledge to score quick sales. Once they get a foot in the door, they may claim costly repairs or products are needed immediately to prevent serious problems like carbon monoxide leaks or chimney fires.

We wish you good while choosing the best chimney sweep for the safety of your loved ones.

yousaf

I am Yousaf working at PR development executive at Tablet Hire which is ipad rental company in the United Kingdom.