D I Y Chimney Sweep

John Fallon

Living in the country is great - in a cottage, in a glen by ourselves and having a multi-fuel stove that heats our open plan house and also all the water that we require.

However there comes a time, at least once every two years when the lum must be cleaned.

Here is where my story begins

The chimney needs swept. This stove is not working properly, said Mary my wife.

Ok, I will phone for the sweep tomorrow, I replied.

Next day I discovered that the sweep had retired and that no-one has taken over his business.

This chimney sweep used a vacuum system that withdrew all the soot out from inside the back of the stove. The local sweep, brushed from the top of the chimney down. This choked the lum at the connecting points, between the stove and the flu.

Oh dear. What to do? Think! What can I use as a vacuum to suck out the soot? The Dyson cleaner? No! Better not as I destroyed one before trying to lift up fine sawdust in the loft. No, this must be something more industrial. Ah yes! The B&Q garden blower. It also sucks and has a dust collector bag attached to it. This should be ideal.

To set this up, I required to fit the long black tube of the blower through the front of the stove to reach the connecting chimney flu pipe at the back.

With dust covers everywhere, just in case, the machine set in place, the wife away to work, our three collies behind the living room door in the front lobby, work was set to commence.

Then sods law! Just as I was about to start the job, from outside came the sound of a car braking sharply, followed by a thud. Rushing out to see what had happened, I discovered a pheasant had been struck by a vehicle and it had landed in our car park. I placed the dead bird outside the front door, out of reach of the dogs and returned to the job in hand.

After all the preparations were complete it was time to start.

I switched the machine on to suck out the soot into the dust bag and it did and out again through the bags fine mesh holes! Thus filling the room with a cloud of black soot.

Panic! Switch off! I did. But too late! The soot was everywhere, apart from my eyes and mouth. Then to crown it all there came a knock on the front door causing the dogs to bark madly.

It was Marys friend, who had come to pick up a book. Hello Janice, I said, looking like someone from the Black & White minstrel show. She reeled back in amazement.

At the same time the two young dogs grappled for dead bird, causing pheasant feathers to fly everywhere. She took her book out of the cloud of soot mixed with flying feathers, departed without saying a word.

So after her quick exit, I retrieved the pheasant from the jaws of the dogs, calmed them down and dumped the pheasant in the bucket. Then made a start to clean up.

Things eventually returned to normality, although it took me hours to clean the house.

Then I had a brilliant idea - I would blow the soot up the flu and out of the chimney pot. Ingenious? No!

Here I go again.

The idea was once again to fit the now blower tube exactly to the back of the stove to the flu pipe at the back. So again I spread dust covers everywhere just in case.

Right. A clean me. A clean house. All things in place once more. Time to switch on. I did and it worked. The machine was powerful enough to clear the flu with no blow-back of soot. Job well done!

Great I had discovered a way to clean this type of stoves flu without any disasters wrong!

Whilst clearing things away, I was taken aback by seeing the once silver car, the once white caravan and our car park all covered in black soot. Worst of all were the once clean clothes hanging on the washing line. Just as well it was wintertime, because there would have been black flowers and black bushes. Everything was black. I was also glad that it was raining heavily, as usual, hoping this would help clean things!

Having no time to clear all the mess, I had to admit to Mary when she came home, of my stupid antics. But I did not mention about the first incident, when her friend called. Nor about the dogs, the feathers, the soot and the sight of me giving her a fright.

However Mary met her friend a month later and Janice asked, How did John manage to clear away the feathers and the soot?.

Confronted with this, I confessed all and apologised for my stupidity and for the smell of soot that lingered for ages afterwards.

You may like to know, when I was young, in the 1940s,the method used to clean the lum was to stick a well lit old news paper up the chimney and set it on fire.

In future I will wait until it is dark and set the lum on fire. After all, I fitted the flu with a strong silver-chromed steel lining, right to the base of the chimney pots.

By the way, the lining of the chimney flu, was another separate disaster that maybe I will able to tell you about it someday.

Yours truly,

(there s no substitute for experience.) The DIY Chimney Sweep.