Harrow Bend Chimney Works · third-generation sweeps · Est. 1963
We are not in the business of selling chimneys. We are in the business of keeping yours alive — the sweep, the damper, the crown, the draft. A hearth is a promise a house makes, and we are its keepers.
Services
The works, in order of how a chimney fails
01
The annual sweep — $179
Brushed behind a sealed hearth on HEPA extraction, smoke-tested after, graded degree by degree on a written card. NFPA 211 asks for it every burning year; creosote does not care how busy you were.
02
The camera scan — $329
A rod-mounted camera down every foot of flue, recorded and measured, because a crack you cannot see is a quote you cannot trust. Required at any sale, fuel change or flue fire; recommended before any money changes hands on repairs.
03
Damper repair & fitting
The most abused part of the hearth: throat dampers rusted open, handles gone, plates seized half-seat. We rebuild throats, re-seat plates, and fit top-sealing dampers that close the chimney like a biscuit tin — the single biggest fix for summer smell and winter draft.
04
Chambers, crowns & pointing
Smoke chambers parged smooth with insulating castable, crowns poured with a drip edge that sheds water off the brick, joints re-pointed in mortar matched to the original lime. The masonry above the roofline is the part of the chimney the weather works on hardest.
The season, in figures
The trade’s quiet secret
The damper, honestly
Nine houses in ten around the Bend burn with a damper that no longer closes — rusted open, handle missing, plate seized above the firebox where nobody looks. An open damper is a hole the size of a dinner plate in the middle of your living-room ceiling, all winter, and the reason the fireplace smells like last February in July. It is a day’s work to fix, priced off the card below, and it changes the room more than any sweep we sell.
Damper work
Throat damper — service & re-seat$140
Cleaned, re-hinged, plate seated, handle replaced where gone
Cast-iron throat damper, fitted$420
New damper assembly in the existing firebox throat
Top-sealing damper, supplied & fitted$680
Closes at the chimney top — includes the stainless cap
Damper draw test$0 with any visit
Smoke-pencil and manometer readings, before and after
How it goes
A visit, from knock to card
The knock
Runners from the door to the hearth, sheets over everything, the HEPA vacuum running before a single rod goes up.
The sweep
Brush to the top, pass after pass, until the flue walls show bare tile or liner. What came out is bagged and graded on the spot.
The look
Lamp up the flue, camera where the lamp cannot reach — the damper, the chamber, the smoke shelf all get checked by name.
The card
Everything found, everything done, and what next season should look like — written, priced off the card, no surprises later.
The leaving
The hearth vacuumed, the sheets folded outward, the room exactly as it was except for the woodpile you did not have to burn.
Harrow Bend & Bracken Rise, 2025 — 2026
Recent flues
How often does a chimney really need sweeping?
Every burning year — the rule is about creosote, not calendars, but a season is the honest unit. A cord of seasoned hardwood deposits about an eighth of an inch; green wood doubles it. The card grades what we found and tells you your own interval.
Why does the fireplace smoke the room out?
Usually the draft, and the damper is the usual draft. A plate stuck half-open, a chamber rough enough to slow the pull, a house tightened past what the flue can draw — the visit checks them by name, in that order, and the fix is more often $140 than a reline.
What are the creosote degrees?
First degree is flaky soot and brushes out. Second has hardened into plates and gets the rotary head. Third degree is glazed tar — chimney-fire fuel — and gets chemical treatment plus a camera follow-up, because brushing glaze only polishes it.
Level 1, 2 or 3?
Level 1 is the annual look, no tools. Level 2 is the camera scan — at any sale, fuel change, or after a flue fire. Level 3 opens masonry, is scoped only from what Level 2 filmed, and is rarer than the trade makes it sound.
Can we burn right after you leave?
Yes — that is rather the point. The smoke test at the end of the sweep proves the draw before we fold the sheets, and the first fire of the season is yours the same evening.
Ask the shop
Elsa answers the line herself, seven to five, Bend and Rise. If it is burning right now and should not be — the fire brigade first, us immediately after.
Three outfits told the Bend cottage it needed a reline. Elsa rebuilt the damper for $420, the room stopped smelling of every fire since 1975, and the camera footage showed a flue with decades left in it. She talked us out of four thousand dollars and we have never trusted a tradesperson more.
The card is written by hand at the kitchen table before anything is touched — what was found, what was done, what it cost, what next year needs. Our surveyor asked for a copy for the file, which tells you what the trade’s paperwork usually looks like.
Chamber parged, crown poured, joints pointed — three crews’ worth of work off one card. The draw is so improved the firewood goes a third further, which nobody promised and everybody notices.
Autumn calendar fills by the first cold Monday — book the sweep before the first fire · (555) 034-2296 · sweeps@harrowbendchimney.example
Keep the promise burning
Tell us the house, the hearth, and when anyone last went up it — if you have the old card, we will read it. The annual sweep is $179 with everything written, and the damper is very often the whole story. sweeps@harrowbendchimney.example