• Wed. Nov 13th, 2024

What You Should Know Before Hiring a Chimney Sweep

ByClare Louise

Jan 11, 2023
A brick chimney

Regular chimney cleaning and maintenance are essential to keep your chimney and fireplace in good condition. For this purpose, you need to hire a chimney sweep at least once or twice every year. A chimney sweep removes creosote buildup, soot, tar, debris, and dust from the chimney.

Regular chimney sweeping prevents your chimney and fireplace from getting blocked due to soot and creosote buildup. Carbon monoxide and other gasses can easily leave your chimney through a functional fireplace. Additionally, regular chimney sweeping will stop your fireplace and chimney from turning into a fire hazard.

This blog discusses what you should know before hiring a chimney sweep.

Inexperienced Chimney Sweeps Can Be a Safety Hazard

While we realize that the market is filled with chimney sweeps that offer their services at a very low price, hiring an unprofessional or inexperienced chimney sweep is a bigger problem than you think. You might be tempted to hire a low-cost chimney sweeping service, but an untrained chimney sweep can use unsafe techniques that don’t match industry regulations.

Additionally, untrained chimney sweeps might not clean your chimney according to safety and industry standards, which means that your chimney will remain blocked. This can lead to a fire hazard and the residents of a house can even get exposed to carbon monoxide due to chimney blockage.

A chimney on the roof of a house

Ensure That Chimney Sweeps Don’t Leave a Mess Behind

It’s no secret that chimney sweeping is a messy job. Pieces of tar, soot, and mortar are bound to fall down the chimney and build up in your fireplace when a chimney sweep is cleaning the chimney. Additionally, this dirt and debris can end up on the floor or carpet, which can be a nuisance to deal with later. So we recommend looking for chimney sweeps that clean up after themselves.

Always hire chimney sweeps that make pre-arrangements to ensure that the soot doesn’t ruin your carpet or floor. Additionally, make sure that these chimney sweeps don’t leave debris behind once they’re done with the work or charge extra to clean the mess they created in the first place.

Licensed Chimney Sweeps Need to Be Your Choice

Besides trying the services of experienced and professional chimney sweeps, hire the ones that have the required certifications. Many chimney sweeping services will claim to be the best in the market, but you should always go for the ones certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America. In some cases, the manager of a chimney sweeping company might be NFI certified, but they send over chimney sweeps that don’t have the certification.

So homeowners need to check the certification of every technician that’s about to climb up their chimney and clean it from the inside. The NFI certification is proof that your chimney sweep will stick to safety standards and industry regulations while cleaning your chimney and fireplace. You can also ensure that the chimney technicians are highly experienced by checking their reviews online.

Top-shot of a house with two chimneys

Always Ask about their Insurance Coverage Strategy

Another thing you need to know before hiring a chimney sweep is their insurance coverage policy. If a chimney sweeping service provides all the necessary documentation that you can use to cover any damages that may happen to your chimney during the sweeping, they’re a reliable and experienced chimney sweeping service.

Even though the chances of damage to your chimney during sweeping are low, if the company doesn’t provide insurance documents, you’ll have to pay for everything if things go south.

Chimney on a house in front of several bushes

Get Started with Creative Masonry & Chimney for Chimney Sweeping

With the help of a professional chimney sweep, your chimney and fireplace won’t turn into a safety or fire hazard. So it’s advisable to hire a professional chimney sweep in Hartford, CT, from Creative Masonry & Chimney. Their chimney sweeps have over 20 years of experience in cleaning and sweeping chimneys and fireplaces. Their team knows how to deal with different types of chimneys and chimney materials.

Additionally, their chimney sweeps are certified and follow the chimney cleaning and sweeping standards set by the National Chimney Sweep Guild (NCSG) and Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA). Their chimney cleaning services also provide the complete insurance documentation that you might need in the future. Besides cleaning chimneys, their team also handles chimney repairs, restoration, and rebuilding in different areas of Connecticut.