Chimneys, Woodstoves, & Fireplaces

We perform a complete sweeping of your entire system, top to bottom, and always inspect every system we sweep. Beware of “Blow-N-Go” companies that don’t address the entire system, especially at the lower end near the heat source. This includes the hidden smoke chamber and smoke shelf areas, which are often neglected by such shoddy technicians, leaving a potential fire hazard.

Tarp protection

Protecting your home is very important to us. This is why whenever we go into your home for our initial evaluation, we always remove our shoes. Before we bring our equipment into your home to sweep or repair your system, we lay tarp protection all the way from the front door to your fireplace.


Sweeping

Sweeping and inspecting a standard fireplace system should take about an hour and a half, and often takes longer. We will inspect your system for stage three glazed creosote and rotary sweep to remove it. This is the kind of creosote that can burn down an entire house. Don’t let anyone convince you they can simply blow air up the chimney and call it clean. Creosote must be mechanically swept and removed— it can’t just be blown out!

Chimney in Minneapolis
To the right is an example of stage three creosote glaze. This is the type of creosote that burns houses down if it catches fire. This creosote cannot simply be blown out, but rather it must be mechanically removed. The severe glazed creosote shown above would have to be removed by aggressive rotary sweeping, and possibly even chemical reduction. This customer had never had his chimney swept before.

Chimney in St. Paul
This is an example of expanded creosote, after a chimney fire. After it was swept, we found severe fracturing of the flue, caused by the chimney fire.








Inspections

SmartSweep follows the inspection standards of the National Fire Protection Association, and offer the three NFPA 211 Levels of Inspection for our customers, as needed. (NFPA 211 Levels I, II, and III)

Level I / visual or with camera as the customer desires
Level II / camera inspection required with attic and/or crawlspace access needed.
Level III / involves partial destruction/demolition of system as required for inspection of hidden areas. This inspection is typically reserved for in-depth or forensic investigation
For more information on the NFPA 211 levels of inspection, go to www.csia.org