The number of guys who don't sweep the smoke shelf is getting out of hand

I was called out to a house last Tuesday in a neighborhood near me. The homeowner said their previous sweep had been coming for three years straight. When I ran my camera up there, the smoke shelf was caked with about two inches of soot and creosote. That is the whole reason you do a clean from the top down. You cannot get that shelf clean from below with a rotary tool. I asked the homeowner if their guy ever went on the roof and they said no. How do you call yourself a chimney sweep if you skip the most basic part of the job? Has anyone else been seeing this a lot lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

kelly.daniel14d ago

Man, I was just reading an NFPA report last week that said something like 60% of chimney fires happen in systems that were supposedly "professionally cleaned" within the last year. @emery879 nailed it - those rotary-only guys are leaving a ticking time bomb in the smoke shelf.

coleman.seth14d ago

Oh man, that NFPA stat is wild but honestly I'm not even surprised lol. I had a buddy who bought a house last year and the seller claimed the chimney was cleaned right before closing. First fire they had the whole house filled with smoke. I went up to check and the smoke shelf was literally a solid inch of creosote. The rotary brush spun right over it like a top, never touched the shelf at all. Took me a solid hour with a hand scraper just to get the main chunk out. Those rotary guys are basically running a car wash where they only wash the hood lol.

emery87914d ago

And honestly the worst part is these guys are probably charging the same rate as a proper sweep, so the homeowners are getting ripped off on top of the fire hazard. Tbh it's probably why some of those chimney fires happen in houses that supposedly get cleaned regularly, the shelf just keeps building up underneath the rotary job. Ngl if you can't do the full service you should just be upfront about it and charge less instead of pretending you did it all.