Chimney Sweeps are Cleaning up!

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This may--all things considered--be the best start-on-a-shoestring enterprise that MOTHER has ever featured ... and we're gonna be mighty surprised if a hundred or more readers of this magazine don't eventually wind up as $1,000-a-week chimney sweeps. Be sure to let us know if you're one of the hundred! -

ADDITIONAL INFORMATON

AUGUST WEST SYSTEMS, Box 663M, Westport, Conn. 06880. The good folks at this company have probably done more to advance the art of sweeping chimneys during the past year or so than everyone else in the field put together since the business was first invented. For $1,385, AW will sell you a package of all the specialized tools, operating instructions, advertising and promotion ideas, etc., you'll need to start making important money immediately as a flue cleaner. AW will also sell individual pieces of its equipment (some of which is patented) separately. A good way to get acquainted with the firm is by ordering out its information package to start with. Mail off a dollar for the packet and tell Dan and Tom that MOTHER sent you.

BLACK MAGIC CHIMNEY SWEEPS, Box 977M, Stowe, Vt. 05672. We haven't seen any of the manuals or equipment sold by this firm, but we've talked to some of the BM people on the phone and found them courteous, helpful, and knowledgeable. Just like the principals at August West, the Black Magic folks actually clean chimneys themselves, know their business, figure that a top operator should make $1,000 or more a week, and seem anxious to promote the whole trade as much as they promote themselves. BM sells equipment and franchises, and offers a training course. Send $1.00 for the company's information packet.

THE CHIMNEY SWEEP GUILD, c/o Kristia Associates, Box 1175, Portland, Maine 04104. This brand-new trade organization was just founded by Kristia Associates, which is better known as an importer of Scandinavian stoves. The guild offers brushes and other supplies for sale and sells The Homeowner's Resource Book on the Art of Sweeping Chimneys for $2.00.

Furnace cleaners don't hack it ......

Beware--if you're thinking of becoming a chimney sweep of equipment dealers who try to tell you that high-performance "chimney vacuums" or "furnace sweepers" have made cleaning a flue with a brush obsolete. And, it you're a homeowner looking for someone to clean a chimney, don't let any serviceman try to tell you that he can do the job with a vacuum alone.

The vacuum cleaner hasn't yet been made--even those noisy behemoths that are so big they have to have their own gasoline engines and ride around on custom trailers--that can completely substitute for the handwork a real chimney sweep puts into a job. Which means you're just wasting your money when you pay a serviceman to clean a chimney with nothing but a vacuum.

A case in point: MOTHER researcher Dennis Burkholder moved into a different house during the fall of 1976 and immediately set about installing a wood-burning stove to keep his family warm. And, since Dennis knew about the hazards of flue fires, he called in a local service company which "cleaned" his new home's chimney with one of those monster trailer-mounted "furnace sweepers".

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