Chimney sweeping and cleaning in Aurora.

1. What the brushes remove.

   Wood smoke leaves a thin film across the walls of the flue. A fresh film is dry and brushes away with ease, but after many slow, smoldering fires it turns into sticky tar, and in time into a hard, shiny glaze that a stiff brush hardly moves.

   We start at the damper and work upward toward the cap, then clean the smoke ledge, and finish on the firebox floor. All that comes loose is collected and carried off, so none of it stays in the house to burn later.

   

2. How often a sweep falls due.

   Frequency depends on how you burn: a fire every evening builds deposit far faster than a few spread across the winter, and a heavy or glossy coat means the next sweep is overdue.

   NFPA 211 recommends checking the chimney once a year, and that check shows how much deposit there is, so a sweep and an inspection often happen on one visit.

   A sense of scale helps. The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 figures list 90,310 of Aurora's 145,310 occupied homes as using utility gas for heat and 197 as using wood (margin of error 116). Even a fireplace lit only now and then collects some deposit, which is why the yearly check comes first.

3. What a clean flue does for you.

   Chimney fires begin when creosote that has built up catches alight in the flue. Remove the deposit and a stray spark has much less to burn.

   The draw improves too. Smoke ought to leave by the top, but a coated flue can let it spill back into the room when the damper opens.

   

4. Stoves and fireplace inserts.

   A stove damped down for the night burns cool, and cool smoke leaves the most creosote, most of all in the connecting pipe.

   With a stove we follow the smoke along its whole route: the pipe leaving the stove and its joints, the flue or liner above, and finally the cap.

5. Up at the top.

   Smoke has cooled by the time it reaches the cap, and cooled smoke sheds soot. A clogged screen weakens the draw, yet the screen is also what holds embers back, so it gets cleaned on every visit.

   

6. Smells on humid days.

   That smell comes from creosote. Flues that have seen use hold on to some, and on muggy days, or when the draft runs backward, it gets pulled down into the room. Sweeping removes the source, and keeping the damper shut and the cap in place handles what is left.

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