This time of year there is normally a 3 week wait to get you chimney sweep booked in, but with the rise of energy costs see more info here:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/check-if-energy-price-cap-affects-you
There seems to be a lot more people opening up their fire places and wanting to use solid fuels, which is great for us chimney sweeps.
However, with some of these chimneys not being used in many years there is many things to look out for.
The first thing I do as a chimney sweep when I turn up to your house is have a visual inspection of the chimney stack and pot and if I feel its unsafe to sweep, I won’t be sweeping. The risk of a brick falling out of your chimney and landing on your neighbour’s car scares the life out of me. There was once an incident when someone actually died from a chimney stack falling:
So if your chimney is in a bad state then it will need to be repaired before it can be swept.
So back to what this post is about, the rise of energy costs are making people turn to their open fires and wood burners that haven’t been used in many years, because of this the phone hasn’t stopped ringing, and now there’s an 8 week wait to get your chimney swept.
BUT all is not lost, I do have a few hours set aside each week for emergency appointments but these are charged at £140 per sweep
Every year I ask myself why people don’t get their chimney swept in the quieter months (between February and August) I even remind all my customers how busy I become when the nights start to draw in.
The people that make me laugh (these are normally estate agents) I get a phone call on the Friday “Hello we’ve got a tenant moving in on Monday, is there any chance you can sweep their chimney before they move in” this is a chimney that hasn’t just miraculously appeared it’s been there since the house was built! And not been swept in 20 years!
I’ve even had some regular customers get mad at me on the phone because I can’t get their chimney swept before winter is here – HOLD ON! You’ve had all year to call me.
There’s only one way to guarantee you will get a booking, and that is by booking me early!
You can even book me for next year whilst I’m at your house sweeping your chimney – many customers do this.
