By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Most people booking a chimney sweep for the first time are quietly worried about one thing: soot on the carpet. It is a fair concern, and the honest answer is that a properly run…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Creosote sweeping logs do something, but they do not do what most people buying them think they do. They can make brittle deposits easier to remove. They cannot remove those deposits from your chimney,…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. A wood or pellet insert dropped into an existing masonry fireplace needs its own full-length liner running from the insert all the way to the top of the chimney. This is the single most…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. If dust reappears on your registers within weeks of a duct cleaning, the ducts are usually not the problem. The far more common cause is that the return side of the system is pulling…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Fireplace ashes hold live coals far longer than almost anyone expects, and the container they go into matters more than the schedule you empty them on. Ashes that look completely cold and gray on…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. The little hood on the outside wall where your dryer exhausts is the part of the system nobody looks at, and it is where a surprising number of dryer problems actually start. Almost every…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. If your fireplace pushes smoke into the room with the damper fully open and a clean flue overhead, the problem is usually proportion rather than obstruction. A fireplace opening that is too large for…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. A carbon monoxide alarm is not a chimney inspection, but for most homes it is the only venting monitor in the building. When it chirps in a warning pattern or goes into full alarm,…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Most homeowners describe their fireplace by how it looks, and brick facing can hide either of two completely different appliances. Knowing which one you own changes what can be repaired, what has to be…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Late August is when firewood gets delivered and stacked, and it is also when the single biggest cause of creosote buildup gets set in motion. Wet wood is not just a slow starter. It…
