Chimney sweeping: It's a sooty job, but someone's got to do it

As night falls over the city in winter, curls of smoke rise from many brick chimneys as families nestle around a flickering fire.

"It is really romantic," Bob Koehne, owner of Skyhaven Chimney Sweeps in Las Vegas, says. "A poet said once that listening to the ocean and watching a fire burn are the two most tranquil things."

While it may be romantic in winter, the thought of a roaring fireplace when it's hot enough to melt s'mores on the sidewalk can make even the coolest heads hot. But local chimney sweepers and fire officials say now is the best time to get the oft-neglected chimney cleaned and inspected -- before it's too late.

"When you are dealing with fireplaces you are dealing with a lot of problems," Koehne says. "It's just like any other appliance in the home that needs to be (maintained)."

Koehne has swept Las Vegas chimneys since 1975 when he made a career switch from a job in human resources to one in natural resources -- and soot.

"My friends said, 'What are you going to do?' " Koehne says, confidently and deliberately adding: "Chimney sweep."

The UNLV graduate clearly enjoys his work (and a good flue) in the winter when he wears a top hat and tails -- the time-honored chimney sweep attire -- to romanticize the maintenance job. He has gone through 15 hats over his decades-long career.

"I go into the homes with the top hat on at least," Koehne says, although sometimes he doesn't leave with the hat, ergo the 15. "People expect it, they are looking for Mary Poppins."

Or rather, Bert, the chimney sweep pal of Mary, played, respectively, by Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in the 1964 classic.

"The chimney sweeps were the low caste in England," says Jim Gillam, editor of Snews: Chimney Sweeps News Magazine, explaining the roots of the costume tradition. "They wore hand-me-downs from undertakers. They wore black so they wouldn't have to wash every day."

But cleaning and inspecting chimneys is more serious than the offbeat uniform implies.

"What's more dangerous than a wood fireplace are the gas fireplaces," Koehne says. "A lot of the time people don't know to open the flues, dampers can fall off."

Mishandling the fireplace allows the non-odorous, invisible and deadly carbon monoxide gas to leak into the home or cause structural problems that can lead to fire in the walls.

"We wear a mask, you're working with cancer-causing substances," Koehne says.

Along with his two employees, Koehne, who works out of his home, wears a dual- canister mask (like a gas mask) while working on big jobs so as not to breathe in creosote, or soot.

C. L. Knutson had his annual cleaning and inspection a few months ago. The semiretired airline dispatcher for a private airline has lived in Las Vegas 28 years -- 20 of those with a fireplace.

"We live in an area of the country where we have things called salt heaves, and ... caliche (built-up sodium nitrate deposits)," Knutson explains about the desert's geology. "This will move up and down (or settle) and you might get a crack in your chimney. If it goes deep enough, when the hot fumes and sparks go up your chimney (that) could set your house on fire."

Tim Szymanski, public information officer for the City of Las Vegas Fire Department, has plenty of chimney fire experience from his years on the East Coast, where a nice fire takes the chill off the colder days and nights. "We used to go to countless fires simply because people didn't maintain their chimneys," he says.

Although Las Vegans only crave a cozy fire a few months out of the year it only takes one wayward spark to start a blaze. "We recommend people do it every couple of years because a chimney sweep will go in and make sure everything is in place," Szymanski says.

The most popular chimney installed in the growing valley is the "prefab," he says, which is a steel pipe that runs from the fireplace out of the side of the house and is encased in a smallwood frame attached to the home. These are mainly designed to push any excess heat outside. Most of the "prefabs" are the gas log fireplaces with controlled heat.

"People who have 'prefab' fireplaces should not burn wood, paper, or anything but a small fire," Szymanski warns.

Even a gas fireplace needs cleaning and inspecting, although only every other year as compared to masonry chimneys (typical brick chimneys), which require annual maintenance and take not just heat but the toxic gas carbon monoxide out of the home.

"It's not just heat that's the problem -- more importantly, carbon monoxide, a deadly flammable gas," Szymanski says.

Ten years ago, Szymanski's home filled with carbon monoxide when he turned on his furnace, which also used the chimney as an outlet.

"We started getting sick, and we went up (to the chimney) and found a bird had (nested)," Szymanski says. Once the bird was safely removed the home was quickly rid of the poisonous gas.

Szymanski urges fireplace owners to use carbon monoxide detectors -- which range from $25 to $50 -- in the home. "We highly recommend them (for) anything that has a flame -- a gas dryer, stove, water heater," Szymanski says. "It is a deadly gas, you could be breathing it and not even know it."

There is also the very real threat of fire.

"The walls of the chimney get hot -- 400- to 500 degrees; the flames are 1,000 (degrees). The (heat) starts to destroy the metal pipe and flame will get out of the pipe and get into the areas you don't want it to get in," Szymanski says.

Many chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisonings are avoidable for less than $100 and one hour of work.

"I've seen fires that (cause) somewhat inexpensive damage, to $85,000, and it's something they could have avoided," Szymanski says. "(Chimney sweeps) do a good job: they keep the birds out of there, they keep the lines clean and they do an inspection, check that all the parts are in working order."

When Paul Ellul started the chimney sweep business Superior Services 16 years ago "it was a virgin industry," Ellul says. Most people don't understand out here in the West the importance of chimney cleaning.

"It's really a dying industry," Ellul says, adding that most fireplaces built today are gas, and although they don't need as much cleaning, few people realize that it needs to be done.

"Dryer vents, that's a real big one," Ellul says. "We've had a lot of fires from those (over the years)."

Szymanski agrees, saying that dryer vents have caused some valley fires over the last few years as they get clogged with fluff from spinning laundry or trap the flow of gas in the home.

Ellul says that the chimney sweeping season picks up heavily in October and tapers off in March, mostly because people don't think about their fireplaces in the blazing summer months.

But, Ellul warns, "you don't want the creosote to stay in there all summer long. When rain hits it, it turns into lye and can deteriorate the mortar."

He has removed many birds from chimneys, and urges fireplace owners to put a chimney "cap" on that noise. "It costs more to get a bird out than put a (chimney) cap on," he says about the metal fixture.

Ellul has climbed to the roof of quite a few area homes over the years to see the telltale markings of a chimney fire in which even the roof was singed. But when he alerts the customer, they are indifferent to the dangers.

"Oh, really," is the usual reaction, he says. "I tell them to burn it at (their) own risk. When you've had a chimney fire you are supposed to tear the whole thing down and start all over."

Because of the intense heat, sometimes reaching upwards of 2,000 degrees, unseen structural damage can occur, which may be dangerous.

"There's no way to guarantee it," Ellul says. "Nobody thinks it's serious until their house burns down."

Or until they see a chimney fire on the news and "then they get interested again," he says.

"People forget very quickly."

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