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An Introduction To Chimney Cleaning In NH
The History Of Chimney Cleaning
NH Fireplace Cleaning
NH Wood Stove Cleaning
NH Pellet Stove Cleaning
NH Oil Chimney Cleaning
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As the number one reason of fires in NH for the past fifteen years, you would think that these fires are completely unavoidable. However, the fact is that these fires are completely avoidable if the chimneys and solid fuel burning appliances that vent into these chimneys are properly maintained. That's where we come in. As a fully certified and insured chimney sweeping company in NH, we understand that these appliances and chimneys are going to be used heavily. NH is not a warm state by any means, and some of the "primary" heat sources like oil and electric can be ridiculously expensive. NH rightly looks for alternative sources of heat to supplement their oil, gas, or electric heating systems to both save on costs and to enjoy the cozy kind of heat that only a wood burning appliance can produce. That being said, just because fuel cost is low doesn't mean that these solid fuel burning appliances do not need to be maintained. It is not as simple as plugging one of these bad boys into a chimney and forgetting about them. Failure to maintain any kind of appliance and the chimney that said appliance vents into can have potentially deadly consequences. House fires, chimney fires, and carbon monoxide poisoning are all very real possibilities when a chimney is not properly maintained and inspected on a regular basis, yet, chimneys seem to be one of the most neglected parts of nearly every home.
The National Fire Protection Association recommends that all chimneys be inspected annually regardless how much they are used. Per that inspection, a certified chimney sweep can gauge how "dirty" your chimney is and whether or not the chimney flue and appliance need to be cleaned. A general rule of thumb is that the chimney venting a wood stove or fireplace should be cleaned after cord of wood that is burned, a chimney venting a pellet stove should be cleaned after every one to three tons of pellets burned, and a chimney venting an oil appliance should be cleaned about every three years, unless there is a malfunction with the oil boiler or furnace system that causes black smoke to come out of the chimney.
Chimneys that are venting solid fuel burning appliances (i.e. wood stoves, pellet stoves, and fireplaces) get "dirty" much faster than a chimney venting oil, but why is that? And what exactly is making them dirty? Chimneys venting solid fuel appliances get dirty quickly due to a number of factors primarily revolving around stack temperature and efficiency. The stack temperature needs to be as high as possible in order to prevent the gasses that are going up your chimney from condensing into a solid form. The solid form that these gasses condense into is referred to as "creosote." Creosote is the solid form of the smoke that comes off of your fire and goes up the chimney. Creosote is highly flammable. Creosote is the product of incomplete combustion, and is therefore still combustible. When someone has a "chimney fire" what is actually happening is that the creosote produced by incomplete combustion and cool stack temperatures is catching on fire. Creosote is what gets cleaned off of your chimney flue during a chimney cleaning. If you do not clean, or have the creosote cleaned off of your chimney flue, you are at a higher risk of having a chimney fire that could be much more severe. (More fuel, more fire) The more creosote that you have inside your chimney flue is the more creosote that can burn, raising stack temperatures to an unsafe temperature, which will potentially crack your chimney liner. When a chimney liner becomes cracked, assuming that you have one at all, the gasses produced by your fire can then get behind the chimney liner and build up inside the chimney cavity. Creosote that builds up inside the chimney cavity can not be cleaned off because there is no chimney brush in the world that could get behind a chimney liner. This is because the cracks in a chimney liner are very small. However, they are not small enough to prevent gasses from getting into them and building up behind them. And the cracks in a chimney liner do expand as stack temperatures increase. So, by not having a chimney cleaned regularly, you are susceptible to a chimney fire. Once you actually have a chimney fire, assuming that it did not spread into a structure fire, the chimney liner, at the very least, will most likely be cracked due to the chimney fire. Once the chimney liner is cracked creosote can build up outside of the chimney liner. Once creosote builds up outside of the chimney liner, if you were to have another chimney fire, the fire would not be contained inside of the chimney liner. The chimney fire would have a higher chance of spreading into a structure fire, and that is why it is important to have chimneys cleaned, especially in NH, where they are used far more often to vent solid fuel burning appliances.
The indentured servant children of the chimney trade, most often referred to as "climbing boys," were paid no wages. They were fed by their trade master, given a place to sleep, and they were "taught a trade." The problem with the trade that they were being taught is that they were doing it in an extremely dangerous way. Creosote, the chemical compound that they were cleaning out from the inside of these chimneys, is extremely carcinogenic. As a result, a specific form of cancer began to develop in the young chimney sweeps. This form of cancer, to this day, is still referred to as "chimney sweep cancer" by many. This form of cancer could become prevalent in the boys when they were as young as eight years old. The connection between chimney cleaning and this particular form of cancer was first made by Percivall Pott in 1775, one hundred years before sending climbing boys up the chimney became illegal. This, however, was far from the only threat to the boys' health who were performing this type of chimney cleaning. There are documented cases of the boys actually becoming stuck in the chimney flues that they were cleaning and suffocating to death. Life as a young chimney sweep was hardly something to be sought after during this time period.
Reportedly, in 1788, the first piece of legislation designed to protect these young chimney cleaners was passed in Britain. The Legislation was known as "The Chimney Sweepers Act of 1788." The goal of the act was to provide regulation for master chimney sweeps and apprentice chimney sweeps alike. The act was to limit each master chimney sweep to six apprentices, and all apprentices were to be over the age of eight years old. While there were some small groups and organizations who, at this time, believed in replacing the climbing boys with some form of a mechanical tool, the majority of the citizens seemed to believe that their homes would be in danger if their chimneys were not cleaned by the climbing boys.
The next notable act of legislation regarding chimney sweeps was passed in 1834. This act mandated that a master chimney sweep must not take on an apprentice under the age of fourteen years old, and that a climbing boy must not be sent up a chimney to extinguish an active chimney fire. Six years later, in 1840, the legal age required to be a chimney sweep was increased to twenty one years old. However, it is said that this was widely ignored, as the law was not thoroughly enforced. This became evident in 1875 when a twelve year old boy became lodged in a hospital chimney. Great efforts were made to save the boy. A hospital wall was actually completely torn down in the effort to save him, but he did not make it. It was due to this final incident that the chimney sweepers act of 1875 was signed into law. The chimney sweepers act of 1875 mandated that all chimney sweeps had to be authorized by the police in order to carry out their business in the district. This act gave police the legal authority to enforce the previous legislation as it was written.
The history of chimney cleaning in the united states was not much better. Climbing boys were used, though, reportedly, less often than in Britain. Many homeowners in the United States used bags of bricks to clean their own chimney by dropping the bag of bricks down the flue. There was also much more regulation on how the flues were supposed to be built. The climbing boy "trade" was eventually passed on to African American slaves.
Today, thankfully, chimney cleaners do not operate the way that they did in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Today, chimney cleaners do all of the chimney cleaning from inside the home using power tools and short sections of interconnecting rods. Today, cleaning a chimney is the easy part. A chimney inspection is what requires knowledge and skill in today's world. In today's world, anyone with the proper equipment could clean a chimney, but what separates a basic chimney cleaner from a certified chimney sweep is all in the inspection.
