Chimney Sweep faqs

The fire service recommends that in normal use, chimneys should be swept as follows (unless your insurance company or stove manufacturer declares otherwise):

• Chimneys with solid fuel appliances:
• Smokeless fuels at least once a year
• Domestic bituminous coal at least twice a year
• Wood burning every three months when in use
• Chimneys with gas appliances: once a year, plus they should be checked by a Gas Safe technician.
• Chimneys with oil appliances: once a year, plus they should be checked by an OFTEC technician.
• Birds often drop debris into the chimney, and some like to make it their home: sweeping ensures that your chimney flues remain clear and are safe to use, helping to guard against chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. Please tell us if you think birds are nesting in your chimney as removing a nest is a much bigger job than just performing a sweep.

Yes, primarily for safety reasons. Sweeping your chimney will stop the build-up of creosote and soot that reduces the danger of chimney fires. A typical sweep can also deal with obstructions such as bird nests, soot falls, and building debris. Leaves and cobwebs can also be removed. Soot and creosote, when subject to the damp conditions in your chimney/flue, produce corrosive acids that will attack your flue or liner. Regular sweeping reduces the effects of such corrosion and increases the lifespan of your chimney/flue surfaces. A smoke draw test happens during all chimney sweeps – at no extra charge.

A Chimney Sweep needs space to work, so it would be very helpful if you would make sure the area in front of your fireplace is clear. Hot ash should be removed the night before and please make sure to remove ash and other debris from the grate. Please remove any fragile items from around the fireplace area to prevent any inadvertent damage and move away any hearth furniture and companion sets. We will need access to a free plug socket for the vacuum cleaner.

Your flue will be swept from in front of your stove or open fire. Sheets will be laid in front of the appliance and rods and brushes will be used to clean the flue. This will take 20-40 minutes. It will be cleaned in a way that no soot or ash will come into your room (with the use of an industrial vacuum cleaner and sealing sheets). The area will be left as clean as (or cleaner) than when we arrived.

Please give us a call on 01228 564446. You can message us on WhatsApp and Facebook by searching GMC Services,  or feel free to drop us an email at greg@gmc-services.co.uk requesting a call back. If we don't answer your call straight away due to sweeping, please leave a message and we will endeavour to call you back as soon as possible on the same day. 

We accept cash, or BACS (electronic transfer), payable at the time of the sweep. We will have the bank details with us for the BACS payment during the appointment. You are also welcome to book the following year's sweep at this point.

Yes, we can email you an invoice if required.

Charges vary locally and some seasonal and/or volume discounts are offered. Please check with your local GMC Services sweep for charges and availability when booking.

Payment details can be provided for online payment if preferred. Please make sure you put your property name or first line of the address – it helps us to identify your payment!

If it has been used but not been swept within the past 12 months, for safety it should be swept as soon as possible. If it has not been used since it was last swept, and the problem of birds nesting can be ruled out (if there is a cage or cowl on the chimney), it could be due to the cold or weather conditions. Please call us and we may be able to give advice on the appropriate action to be taken. If you think there is a blockage in your chimney, please advise us, or call to discuss the problem. We can remove most blockages and can establish what has happened and advise on how to prevent it happening again. Since there may be eggs or even hatched baby birds in a nest (which are protected) we will not remove nests during the breeding season (1st March to 1st September) to ensure that the young have left the nest. For more information and advice, see this link from the RSPB.

It usually takes approximately half an hour to sweep each chimney. Occasionally this may take a little longer. Blockages (e.g., a bird’s nest) take more time to clear because of the amount of debris that has to be removed. Where we know, or our customer suspects, there is a blockage we try to schedule this at the end of our working day to ensure there is time to do the work in full and any potential delay does not inconvenience other customers.

If you need to change or cancel your appointment we’d really appreciate you giving us as much notice as possible so we have a chance to reallocate your appointment to someone else. If you are unable to give us less than 24 hours’ notice, we do reserve the right to charge a cancellation fee of up to 100% of the quoted fee.

When you book a visit, we give you an arrival time slot of one hour. As much as we would love to give you a precise time, sometimes traffic congestion or unexpected challenges at a previous appointment can disrupt our schedule. If we are going to arrive outside our scheduled time (earlier or later) we will always ring you to let you know and check whether it is still convenient.

If this is our first visit we prefer it if someone is home when we arrive. We appreciate emergencies do crop up so please let us know in advance if you need to leave a key in a secure place or with a neighbour. In the unfortunate event no-one is home when we visit or we cannot gain access the cancellation charge will be up to 100% of the quoted fee.

Often our customers simply let us in and then go out! We believe that this is mainly because all of our sweeps are Police Checked but also because we return year on year and our customers get to know us. We will happily work with you to make our service as convenient as possible.

If we find anything out of the ordinary or of concern we will contact you – it is best to provide us with both a landline and a mobile contact whenever possible. If further work is needed we will check with you before carrying out any additional work unless you are not present or not contactable and we believe the work is essential or it would be dangerous to leave the situation as it is.

Our service is as clean as we can make it. We provide sheets that cover the fireplace opening and the area to the front of the fireplace, and we also use a commercial vacuum to keep dust to an absolute minimum. When we remove a nest, however, we recommend that your furniture, television, nearby curtains, and carpets are covered. We will do our best to contain the debris but, until we start removing the nest, we cannot be sure of how big it is. The action of removing the nest means it is impossible to fully seal the fireplace and therefore further precautions need to be taken by the householder.

The worst thing that we can do when sweeping is to bring soot down the chimney and into the room. We are very experienced and take every precaution to prevent this. We have public liability insurance up to £5,000,000 so you can rest assured that, if an accident happens, you are fully covered.

We will always sweep your chimney to the best of our ability and report anything that we found to be out of the ordinary or of concern. Although we make every effort to remove as much soot and debris from the chimney as possible, in exceptional circumstances (such as when the soot contains moisture or cold air is trapped in the chimney) small amounts of soot can sometimes fall after we leave. If you’re concerned about this do give us a call.

Usually, we will leave the soot with you in a bag for disposal with your household waste. If preferred we can remove the soot for disposal off-site as we are registered low-tier waste carrier licence holders. There may be an additional charge for this service however – we have to pay to take the waste to a municipal site.

Yes. We will send you a certificate of chimney sweeping by email. You will normally receive this within 24 hours of the sweep (or once your payment has been received).

The sweeps aim to keep your chimney clean and safe to use. However, we are only able to conduct a brief visual inspection of your chimney unless you request a CCTV inspection or a ‘soundness’ smoke test. This further inspection might highlight any problems with the chimney itself. Please note that there is a limit to what can be seen by CCTV inside a chimney! Your certificate of chimney sweeping is not a warranty or guarantee that your fireplace, chimney stack, or appliance is safe. Please let us know of any suspected problems in advance.

A CCTV inspection may be useful for assessing any damage, when getting quotes for any remedial work, and providing evidence for insurance or repair purposes. We are always more than happy to advise on what might be required.