Frequently Asked Questions

It is recommend that, chimneys should be swept as follows, unless your Insurance company or stove manufacturer states otherwise:

• Chimneys with solid fuel appliances: Smokeless fuels at least once a year / Domestic bituminous coal at least twice a year / Wood burning every three months when in use.
• Chimneys with gas appliances: once a year and should be checked by a Gas Safe technician.
• Chimneys with oil appliances once a year and should be checked by a OFTEC technician.

There are many reasons a chimney can smoke.

• If your chimney has not been swept within the past 12 months, we would recommend for safety reasons it should be swept as soon as possible.
• If you don’t have bird guards fitted it is possible a bird could have built a nest in the chimney.
• Cold and weather conditions can also cause a chimney to smoke. If you would like further advice please contact us.

Prices are based on the location and number of chimneys to be swept. We are happy to provide a quote when the appointment is made ‘subject to there being no access difficulties, nests or blockages’.

It usually takes approximately half an hour to sweep each chimney. Occasionally this may take a little longer depending on when the chimney was last swept and if it has been swept regularly by a qualified chimney sweep.
Blockages take more time to clear because of the amount of debris that has to be removed. We have specialist equipment to remove all types of blockages including birds nests and excess concrete from the original installation of the chimney.

If you need to change or cancel your appointment we’d really appreciate you giving us as much notice as possible so we can offer it to another customer.

When allocated an appointment you are given an arrival time slot of one hour. Due to traffic delays or unexpected hold ups at a previous appointment, we can not give an exact time. In the event of us running late for your appointment, we will call and give a new estimated time of arrival and check it is still convenient for you.

We prefer it if someone is home when we arrive but we understand that emergencies can come up so we ask that you let us know in advance if you are going to leave a key in a secure place or with a neighbour.

Lots of our customers leave keys out for us or go out once we have arrived. We believe this is due to the fact that they use us regularly and we have built up a rapport with them. We are happy to work with you to make your appointment as convenient as possible.

If we find anything that we feel you need to be made aware of we will contact you, hence it is important to ensure we have contact details for you (preferably a landline and mobile). We will never undertake any additional work until authorisation has been received from yourself.

All we ask is that the ashes are removed from the appliance and the hearth is cleared of any objects.
We provide sheets that cover the fireplace opening and the area to the front of the fireplace, and we also use a commercial vacuum to keep dust to an absolute minimum.
If we remove a nest, however, we recommend that your furniture, television, near-by curtains and carpets are covered. We will do our best to contain the debris. In order to remove a nest it is impossible to fully seal the fireplace and therefore further precautions need to be taken by the householder. We can provide these covers where necessary.

All are engineers are very experienced and will take every precaution to prevent this happening.
In the unlikely event an accident happens we have public liability insurance and you will be fully covered.

Our engineers take great care and will sweep your chimney to the best of their ability and report anything that we find that you should be aware of. Although we make every effort to remove as much soot and debris from the chimney as possible in exceptional circumstances (such as when the soot contains moisture or cold air is trapped in the chimney) small amounts of soot can sometimes fall after we leave. If you’re concerned about this do give us a call.

We normally vacuum all soot deposits to reduce the chances of any deposits entering into the room. We take this away with us. However, some customers have asked us to leave the soot as it can be beneficial for plants and trees.

Most of our customers pay cash directly to the sweep on completion of the works. Our engineers carry portable chip and pin machines and we accept most credit or debit cards. Alternatively bank details can be provided to enable a bank transfer.

We can email an invoice if required.

Yes. We will send you a certificate of chimney sweeping by email or post (if an email address is not provided). This will be sent once your payment has been received.

When sweeping your chimney we will conduct a brief visual inspection, however, it is impossible to guarantee the integrity of a chimney without a full CCTV inspection or alternatively a smoke test. This further inspection might highlight any problems with the chimney itself. Your certificate of chimney sweeping is not a warranty or guarantee that your fireplace, chimney stack or appliance is safe. Please let us know of any suspected problems in advance

A CCTV inspection may be useful for assessing any damage, when getting quotes for any remedial work and providing evidence for insurance or repair purposes. We are always more than happy to advise on what might be required.

We are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and have a strict code of conduct for use of collected email addresses:

• Replying to your queries.
• Sending your certificate, invoice and/or receipt
• We may use your email address if we are unable to contact you via the telephone numbers given
• We reserve the right to contact you with any legal or safety issues which we feel may affect you, or details relating to our business that we feel may be of interest to you.

We will NEVER sell or give your information to a third party.