Getting the chimney swept chez nous has been a challenge in the past.
The theory is that you should have it swept professionally once a year and a certificate is given to say it has been done. Theoretically this should stand us in good stead with our insurance company if we have a chimney fire and things go horribly wrong.
We have found that actually getting someone to come and do the job can be a challenge, not to mention expensive as we have two fireplaces, two wood burning fires and two flues so double the cost.
Two years ago we managed to extinguish a fire in our chimney before it became too serious. The chimney had been swept professionally only four months earlier but the wood burner had more or less been in daily use afterwards. Just to be sure of our position I phoned the insurance company to find out what the rules were and was somewhat alarmed to be told that if there was a house fire leading to a significant claim, an assessor would look at our chimney and decide if that was the cause of the fire. If it was, we would be deemed to be negligent and the claim would not be met. This makes sense as if the chimney was clean a chimney fire would be unlikely to happen anyway. In other words, the certificate of annual sweeping of the chimney (called ramonage) was no guarantee that an insurance claim would be met.
It was also clear that if we could have a chimney fire just four months after it was swept, once a year was not enough. The hassle of getting someone to come and do it, plus the mounting cost, was becoming a problem now that we were living in France all winter and the fires were in regular use.
Whilst we were in one of the local DIY stores not long after the incident, we spotted a soot hoover at a reduced price so we bought it and at the same time a set of poles and brushes so we could sweep the chimneys ourselves. For about the same outlay as the cost of one ramonage we were set up to sweep them as often as we liked.
It's not difficult and takes about half an hour for each woodburner from start to finish. Nick is getting quicker at it with practise!
The kitchen fire is more tricky to do because of its design. The flue ends behind the oven part of the stove and cannot be accessed from inside the fire. We had a lot of trouble getting someone to come and do it professionally because it had to be swept from the top, in other words from up on the roof.
We have solved this problem by having an access hole made in the pipe. A friend very kindly did this for us and also manufactured a removable cover for the hole. We can now sweep both of the chimneys for ourselves.
Nick sweeps the living room chimney about once a month and the kitchen one about every two months because we light it less often. It has saved us a small fortune and given us huge peace of mind.
