Chimney sweeping and cleaning in Winter Garden.

1. What the brushes lift.

   Burning wood coats the inside of a flue. New deposit is dry and powdery and brushes away easily; years of slow, smoky fires turn it into sticky tar and, in the end, a hard glassy glaze that ordinary bristles scarcely touch.

   Work begins at the damper and moves up to the cap. The ledge above the damper is cleared next and the floor of the firebox last, so everything dislodged leaves with us rather than sitting there to burn.

2. Working out the next sweep.

   How you burn decides. Fires every evening build a coating much faster than a few fires on cold days, and a thick or glossy layer means the sweep is overdue.

   NFPA 211 suggests an inspection each year whatever the use. That inspection is what reveals the coating, which is why the two jobs often share one visit.

   Winters are mild enough that hearths here see short bursts of use. Orlando International Airport averages 1.6 nights a year at or below freezing, by its 1991 to 2020 normals, yet it reached 19 degrees on January 21, 1985. Even a seldom-used flue gathers soot, and a neglected one can fill with leaves and nests, so a yearly look is the best starting point.

3. What a clean flue gives you.

   Built-up creosote can ignite in the flue, which is one way chimney fires start. With the deposit gone, a stray spark has little left to catch.

   Draw improves as well. Smoke ought to climb and leave, yet in a coated or partly blocked flue it can come back into the room the moment the damper opens.

4. Stoves, inserts and gas log sets.

   Turn a stove down for the night and it smolders; smoldering smoke is the heaviest creosote maker, and most of it lands in the connector pipe joining stove to flue.

   The whole route of the smoke is cleaned: that connector and its joints, the flue or liner above, then the cap. Gas appliances are a separate matter. Florida's Fuel Gas code expects a flue that once carried solid-fuel smoke to be cleaned out before a gas appliance is attached (501.15.2) and the passage examined before an appliance is replaced (503.5.6), and the residential code bars an unvented gas log heater from a factory-built fireplace unless the unit is listed for one (R1004.4).

5. At the cap: soot, birds and bats.

   Cooling smoke leaves soot on the mesh of the cap. The same mesh keeps sparks in, so a clogged one weakens the draw while defeating its own purpose; we clear it at every visit. Birds and bats take over Florida flues too. Federal law protects chimney swifts, and bat exclusions are illegal between mid-April and mid-August; until the season turns, an occupied flue is left alone.

6. A smell when the air is damp and warm.

   Creosote is the likely cause. A flue that has been used keeps a trace of it, and when the air is heavy and wet, or the draft reverses, the smell drifts into the room. Once the sweep has taken away the source, a damper left shut between fires deals with anything that remains.

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