Chimney Sweeps are Cleaning up!

Enlarge Image Image Gallery ABOVE: There's really not a whole lot to see when Steve Curtis pulls in to clean a chimney with his August West System. Steve's modified Ford van obviously has something to do with fireplaces ... but the August West System-which can completely clean most flues from inside the house-doesn't give Steve much excuse to ""dance on the rooftops"" the way Dick Van Dyke did in the movie, Mary Poppins. Curtis just unloads his equipment-which includes a special sweeper and flexible fiberglass rods-takes it inside, and goes to work. As the last two photos above illustrate, chimney sweep Steve Curtis does almost all his flue cleaning 'from the bottom"" right through the fireplace.

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This may be the best start-on-a-shoestring business that MOTHER has ever featured! What other self-employment venture do you know of that you can get into for only $1,300 ... yet which-right from the start!-can net you $700 or more a week?

How would you like to own your own business, set your own hours, wear a top hat to work, become something of a mystical figure in your community, perform a necessary and much-needed service ... and clear $700 or more a week? Well, chimney sweeps all over the country are doing just that, and the ones that MOTHER has talked to love every minute of it.

MOTHER staffers J. Weiland and Travis Brock, for example, recently watched Steve Curtis clean chimneys in Connecticut for four hours ... and pocket a whopping $140 for his morning's work (Steve is averaging a gross of $1,000 a week and he's booked ahead for a month and a half). Another sweep in Mississippi had already chalked up 1977 earnings of $14,000 ($3,000 during the first 21 days of that month alone) when Travis talked to him late in October. Yet a third sweep in Michigan, who told Brock he "just works at it part time", is taking home an easy $300 to $400 a week.

In fact, the worst possible case that Travis was able to track down was a guy who lived in a remote section of Montana (there are only 11,000 people in his whole county) who charged less than recommended rates for his services, only cleaned about 12 to 16 chimneys a month on a very, very part-time basis ... and who still was netting (for less than one full day's work) a respectable $100 a week. There just doesn't seem to be any way to fail in this business!

CHIMNEY SWEEPS OF COURSE, SWEEP CHIMNEYS

Just what the heck do chimney sweeps do to earn that kind of money? They clean chimneys. Six to eight a day in the case of full-time sweeps ... while part-timers generally average two or three an evening plus a few more on the weekends. When you figure that most of the sweeps charge $40 for cleaning the first chimney on a job and $30 more for each additional one, it's easy to see how those dollars can add up. (During the four hours that Weiland and Brock followed Steve Curtis around, for instance, Steve cleaned one chimney on one house and three on another ... for a total billing--$40 plus $40 plus $30 plus $30--of $140.)

BUT WHY?

And why would anyone fork over forty or more bucks to have some character in a black suit and top hat clean his or her chimney? That question can be answered with one word: SAFETY.

When solid fuels such as coal and wood are burned in a furnace, stove, or fireplace they-as we all know-give off welcome amounts of heat. However--as many of us do not know--those same two solid fuels also give off unwelcome amounts of two by-products: soot and creosote. And, unless a chimney is cleaned regularly, that highly flammable soot and creosote will accumulate in the flue. Where it hangs-like some fiendish fire bomb-just waiting for a chance spark to ignite it.

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