The Scan
$349Level 2, camera
- Every foot of flue on video
- 48-hour written report
- Creosote graded degree by degree
- The footage travels with the house
The NFPA 211 requirement at any sale — satisfied inside the week.
The Sweep & Scan
$479one visit, both services
- Full brush, Level 1 look, HEPA extraction
- Level 2 scan on the clean flue
- Smoke test and draft reading
- Report written to the clean baseline
Buyers light the first fire the week they move in — start them from clean.
The Clearance
$825scan, sweep & fixes
- Sweep, scan and graded report
- Nest and debris clearance
- Damper serviced and seated
- Cap checked, mesh replaced if gone
The move-in package: the flue cleared, working and documented.
How it goes
Offer accepted to clear to close
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Day 0
The call
Solicitor, buyer or seller — ten minutes on the phone and the visit lands inside 72 hours. If the closing is immovable, say so at booking: the calendar is the service, and it bends before the report does.
Days 1–3
The visit
Sheets down, camera down, sweep as booked — creosote graded first, second or third degree, nests cleared from the shelf, the damper run through its travels. Ninety minutes, and the household never has to be there twice.
48 hours
The report
Written for three readers at once: the solicitor gets condition and clearance, the insurer gets the NFPA 211 language and grades, the buyer gets photographs of the flue they are about to own. Video file attached, pages under ten, no adjectives doing a number’s job.
If found
The priced fix list
Anything the camera names — a cracked tile at the thimble, a crown gone to crumbs, a liner to size to the new stove — arrives as an itemized list the same day, priced so the parties can negotiate it before the closing instead of discovering it after.
Closing day
The clearance letter
Where the fix-its are ours to do and done before the date, the file closes with a one-page clearance letter the solicitor attaches to the deed packet. The chimney arrives at the sale with a biography, not a shrug.
For the solicitor
Condition, clearance and dates on page one; NFPA 211 named where NFPA 211 is the question. Deeds offices around the vale have held our files since 2016 and ask for them by format now, which we take as the compliment it is.
For the insurer
Grades, readings and the heat-crack survey an after-fire claim wants, written to be acted on without translation. A report that answers the adjuster’s questions before they are asked is the cheapest coverage there is.
For the buyer
Photographs of every foot of the flue you are buying, the creosote grade it carries, and the fix-list priced while negotiating is still possible. The first fire of your first winter should be a celebration, not an experiment.
Since 2016
The vale’s closings, filed
Tarnfoot & the Cranshaw vale, 2025 — 2026
Sales that closed clean
Six files from last season, photographed at the visit. The report in each picture went to the solicitor the same week.
Our buyer’s surveyor flagged “chimney — condition unknown” and the closing stalled on a Thursday. Closing Day scanned it Friday, and the report was in the solicitor’s inbox before Monday’s coffee — clean flue, graded, photographed, ten pages of nothing to negotiate. We closed the following Wednesday.
As the buyer I asked for the scan and expected a fight. Instead I got a video of my own future flue, a fix-list with two honest numbers on it, and a seller who fixed the crown before the closing because the price was printed. That is what documentation is for.
I convey thirty houses a year around the vale and I put Closing Day’s name in the instruction pack now. Their reports arrive when they say, read like they were written by an adult, and have ended the chimney paragraph of negotiation entirely. The 48-hour promise is worth more than any sweep discount in the county.
The sale nearly died over a chimney nobody had looked up since 1989. The inspector wanted a specialist, the specialist was six weeks out, and the closing was in nine days. Closing Day scanned it on day two: one cracked tile at the thimble, a nest on the shelf, third-degree glaze above — all named, priced and photographed in a report both solicitors accepted that afternoon. Tile replaced, glaze treated, nest cleared, re-scan footage into the deed packet. We closed on day eight, and the buyer’s first fire was in the photographs they sent at Christmas.
Asked every week
The closing five
The questions every sale asks.
Does the sale really require a chimney inspection?
NFPA 211 calls for a Level 2 inspection at any change of ownership, and lenders and insurers around the vale increasingly ask for it in writing. Beyond the rule: a buyer lighting an unscanned flue is running an experiment with the house’s insurance, and a seller with a filed scan is selling a known quantity. The known quantity sells faster.
Forty-eight hours — honestly?
The median last season was thirty-eight. The clock starts when the van leaves your drive, and the only thing that slows a report is a flue complicated enough to deserve the care — a Level 3 question, which we flag at the visit rather than bury at the deadline. Immovable closings get priority at booking; say the date and the calendar works backwards from it.
What if the scan finds something expensive?
Then the finding is priced the same day, itemized, with the footage behind each line — and the parties negotiate it while the sale is still a negotiation. A cracked tile is a tile, not a chimney; a crown is a pour, not a rebuild. Four scans in five find nothing at all, and those reports are the cheapest peace of paper in the packet.
Selling as-is — is the scan still worth it?
Especially then. An as-is sale with a documented flue prices the unknown out of the discount the buyer would otherwise take for it. The scan that clears your chimney usually pays for itself in the offer it prevents being lowered, and the footage travels with the house to the next buyer if this one walks.
Do you sweep before or after the scan?
Scan first on a dirty flue, because the camera wants to see the walls, not the season’s soot — then the sweep, then the report is written to the clean baseline with both grades recorded. That is why the Sweep & Scan is one visit: the movers’ week has no room for two.
Sale-season scans book 8 to 10 days out — name the closing date and the calendar works backwards · (555) 076-3314 · closings@closingdaychimney.example
Name the closing date
Tell us the town, the date and who we are filing for — buyer, seller or solicitor. The Level 2 scan is $349 with the 48-hour report, the Sweep & Scan is $479 in one visit, and the Clearance package has the flue ready for the movers. closings@closingdaychimney.example