Chimney Sweep & Cleaning

The Basics

What is a professional chimney sweep?

Every wood fire leaves something behind. As smoke rises through a cooler flue, it condenses into creosote — a black, tar-like residue that clings to the liner from the smoke chamber to the top of the chimney. Creosote is fuel. It ignites at roughly 2,000°F, and a thick enough layer turns your flue into the one place in the house where a fire is never supposed to burn.

A professional sweep removes that layer before it becomes a hazard. It is not a quick brush-and-go: done right, it cleans the entire smoke path — flue, smoke chamber, smoke shelf, damper and firebox — and finishes with a trained set of eyes on everything the fire touches.

What a Texan Flue sweep includes

We seal the fireplace opening and run a HEPA-filtered vacuum the whole time, so soot ends up in the machine instead of on your furniture. A rotary whip system scrubs the full length of the flue, flexing into corners and tile joints that a rigid brush skips. Then we hand-clean the firebox, damper and smoke shelf — the ledge behind the damper where debris and creosote quietly pile up. Every sweep ends with a visual safety inspection and photos of what we found, and if anything looks off we can run a video camera scan on the spot.

How often — the NFPA 211 rule

The National Fire Protection Association's Standard 211 says chimneys should be inspected every year and swept whenever buildup warrants it. The industry benchmark is simple: 1/8 inch of creosote anywhere in the flue means it's time to clean. In North Texas, where a hot summer follows every burn season, that annual visit matters even when you barely used the fireplace — humidity works on leftover creosote all summer, corroding liners and pushing that campfire smell back into the house. If your buildup has hardened into a shiny glaze, brushing alone won't remove it and you'll want deep creosote removal instead.