Chimney Sweeping in Bayfield, CO

The Seasonal-Use Flue Is the Hardest One We Open

Up the Pine River valley a lot of what we sweep belongs to houses that are not lived in continuously - cabins, weekend places, summer property around Vallecito. Owners are usually surprised to hear those flues are in worse condition than the ones next door that run all winter.

The mechanism is cold starts. Every time a cold flue is lit, the first twenty minutes of exhaust condenses on the way up, because the chimney has not come to temperature. A house heated straight through the winter does that once in October. A cabin used eight weekends a year does it eight times, and each one lays down the tarry second-stage deposit that comes out of a cool flue rather than the flaky kind that comes out of a hot one.

Less use, worse deposits. It is counterintuitive and it is the most common thing owners in this valley get wrong about their own chimneys.

What Falls In While Nobody Is There

The second seasonal-property problem is simply that nobody is watching. Between October and June a cap can lift in a wind and no one knows. Between June and September an open or damaged flue in a pine stand collects needles, cones and duff - enough of it, in a summer, to obstruct a flue meaningfully and to give the first fire of the season something to burn that is not in the firebox.

Birds are the other half of it. A flue with no cap is exactly what a bird is looking for in spring, and a nest in the smoke chamber is both a blockage and a fire load. We find them most years, and always in chimneys with no cap or a cap that has come loose.

Sweep Before the First Fire

The practical version of all of the above: on a seasonal place, book the sweep before you light it, not after something goes wrong. Shoulder season is easiest for access anyway, forest roads are dry, and if we find something that needs a part there is time to get one.

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