Chimney Sweeps are Cleaning up!

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Which is not the same as saying that all chimney sweeps -- or even any two! -- see eye to eye on just how that task should be accomplished. The job itself (breaking loose and scrubbing out every particle of soot and creosote that can possibly be removed from a flue), they agree on. Ask any three sweeps the best way to accomplish this specific objective, however, and you're sure to get at least four adamant opinions on square brushes versus round, hard brushes versus soft, long brushes versus short, weighted brushes versus unweighted, sweeping from the bottom of a chimney to the top versus the other way around, and the same kind of pros and cons about at least 5,000 other finer points of the chimney sweep's art.

All good chimney sweeps, then, do a good job of sweeping chimneys ... and they do it without letting any of the crud get out into their clients' houses. No two chimney sweeps, though, seem to accomplish that objective in exactly the same way.

THE MORE TRADITIONAL APPROACH

Perhaps the most "old-timey" method of cleaning flues that MOTHER ran across while researching this article is the one used by Richard Riggs and Mickey McMasters ... who live and sweep chimneys right here in the mountain town of Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Dick and Mickey work with a minimum of tools and most of their equipment is homemade. And when they clean a typical fireplace (actually, there's no such thing as a "typical" fireplace ... each is unique), they begin by closing it off with a sheet of paper taped completely over the woodburner's main opening. "You've got to make absolutely certain that the tape-and-paper job is airtight," caution the boys, "so that not even a trickle of soot can leak out into the house."

Once Riggs and McMasters are satisfied that they've completely closed off the fireplace, they climb up on the roof with a rope and a homemade weighted brush. The heavy brush is then inserted into the chimney, lowered all the way to the bottom, and pulled back up to the chimney's top. Using this "up and down" action, Dick and Mickey continue scrubbing the inside of the flue until every possible particle of soot, ash, creosote, and other assorted gunk has been knocked loose . . . from the mouth of the stack clear down to the fireplace itself.

The two Hendersonville sweeps then leave the roof, come back into the house, and finish the job from the bottom. First-as soon as they're sure the dust has settled-they remove the tape-and-paper covering from the fireplace's opening. Then they clean out the smoke chamber and smoke shelf and shovel all the soot, ashes, and other debris into bags . . . collect their $40 and leave. The whole operation generally takes about one to one and a half hours.

THE HEIGHT OF TECHNOLOGY

A far more advanced method of sweeping chimneys- perhaps the most advanced in the world-is the one developed by Tom Risch and Dan Ogden of Westport, Connecticut. Tom and Dan call it the "August West System" andfor $1,385-will sell you a complete package of the tools you'll need to make it work. (And, yes, Risch and Ogden's package does include a top hat.)

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