"THE TIME TO HESITATE IS THROUGH ...."

STEP IN TIME

Well yes, that was a bit long but you get the idea.

I needed the chimneys swept before I light the fires this winter. They haven't been done for two years so needed to be done. It's still warm but no doubt it will get really cold soon - old wive's tale Nice Summer, Cold Winter.

I contacted the chimney sweep who I've used before but was unsuccessful. Either he's gone out of business or he's stuck somewhere.

I used the web for searches, Neighbourly and asked around but the only one I found said that they don't service our area. I was seriously thinking of following Robert's advice and using children which would have been a win:win as kids need pocket money but decided against it.

I gave up my searches and decided to do the job myself so bought a flue cleaning brush from Mitre 10.

This has three connecting rods that are fairly rigid but flexible enough to bend to get in the fireplaces and bend to go up the flues.

We have two wood-burners in the house each with their own flues that go up through the 14ft ceilings, through the attic and out to the roof so I needed a brush set with a long reach. One wood-burner is in the main lounge area and the other in the guest lounge area.

Main lounge one kind of like this.

Second lounge one kind of like this.

As The Old Girl is away in Tauranga I decided to do the cleaning away from her beady eyes observation. I fitted the bendy rods together taking care to remember whether the screw was clockwise or anticlockwise to tighten  to make sure that I only twisted the brush in that direction so as not to end up leaving the brush stuck in the flue.

With each fireplace I first cleaned them with a brush and shovel (note to self: as I used the kitchen brush and shovel I'd better clean these properly before she gets home). I then removed the metal baffles above the fireboxes making sure that I remembered the correct location of these. I ran the rods through a plastic bin-liner to catch the soot coming down which was a wise consideration as the soot was very fine and very, very black. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I managed to soot up her carpets, rugs, walls and paintings.

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Fortunately it all worked OK. The flues weren't too dirty - I got about a fifth of a supermarket bag of soot plus two dead starlings. Yes starlings, poor things. I don't know how they manage to get down the flues as they are capped at the top.

I got up on the roof and checked the flue caps, cleaned around them and made sure that there were no nests there. All is now set to light the fire(s) on the weekend if the weather turns cold as predicted.

I have a lot of nice fire wood in my woodshed. This is left over from last year so will be well seasoned and dry. I only use well seasoned and dry wood so as to reduce emissions. We aren't wimps up here so usually when it's cold I just put on another layer of clothing like a jumper. I calculate that at most, between the two wood-burners I would light a fire a dozen times a year. I don't think that my carbon footprint is anywhere near Sasquatch level.