Chimney Sweeping and Camera Inspection, Drogheda
Swept and assessed by stove installers with over fifty years of experience
Most chimney sweeps clean chimneys, glance up the flue with a torch, and call it an inspection. If they find something wrong they can tell you it’s wrong — and then you’re on your own working out what it means and who fixes it.
We’re stove and fireplace installers who sweep chimneys, and we survey with a 360° camera rather than a torch. That’s a different service, and the difference shows up on the day something turns up.
Our Prices
Chimney Sweep — €90
Full power sweep with industrial vacuum extraction, and a proper look over the appliance, seals and terminal while we’re there.
Sweep & Camera Survey — €165
Everything above, plus a full 360° camera survey of the flue from top to bottom. You see the footage yourself, we talk you through anything we find, and you get a straight assessment of what condition your chimney is actually in. This is the one we recommend for most homes.
Full Chimney Survey — €300
The complete job. Power sweep, full 360° camera survey, smoke test, footage supplied to you, and a detailed written assessment of the flue, the appliance and anything that needs attention — with our recommendations on what to do about it.
Those prices cover Drogheda, Bettystown, Laytown, Julianstown, Duleek, Slane, Collon, Ardee, Termonfeckin, Clogherhead, Navan, Trim, Dunleer and the surrounding areas of Meath and Louth.
Dublin — quoted individually. We do cover Dublin, but travel time means we price those jobs on their own rather than pretending one number fits everywhere. Give us a ring with your address and we’ll tell you straight away what it’ll be.
Fifty Years of Looking at Fires
This isn’t a sideline for us. Our family has been supplying, fitting and servicing fires and stoves for over fifty years, across every fuel type and just about every kind of chimney you’ll find in this part of the country.
That matters more than it sounds when somebody is looking up your flue.
Knowing that a chimney is dirty takes very little experience. Knowing whether the state of it is normal wear, a fuel problem, a draw problem, or a genuine fault that needs work — that takes years of seeing them. We’ve seen thousands.
What Most Sweeps Call an Inspection
Ask around and nearly every sweep in the country will tell you an inspection is included. What that usually means is a torch shone up the flue from the fireplace, and a look at the pot from the ground.
You cannot see a chimney that way. A flue is a long, dark, often bent shaft running the height of a house. From the bottom you can see a few feet. From the ground outside you can see the pot. Everything in between — the part that actually fails — is invisible.
That’s not laziness on their part. It’s the limit of the equipment.
What a 360° Camera Survey Actually Shows
We run a camera the full height of the flue, filming in every direction as it travels. Nothing is hidden behind a bend or above the reach of a torch.
What that finds:
- Cracked or failed liners — the most dangerous defect there is, and completely invisible from below
- Glazed creosote — hard, tarry buildup that a brush glides straight over, and that catches fire
- Mortar loss and open joints in older brick flues, where fumes can pass into rooms or roof voids
- Blockages — nests, fallen debris, collapsed brickwork, and exactly how far up they sit
- Water ingress, and the point it’s getting in, rather than guessing from the damp patch downstairs
- Poor installation — badly joined liners, unsupported sections, the wrong size flue for the appliance
- Whether the flue will take the stove you want, before you spend money finding out it won’t
You watch the footage with us, and you keep a copy. You’re not taking anybody’s word for the condition of your own chimney.
Why It Matters Who Looks at Your Chimney
Here’s the honest problem with a sweep who only sweeps: nearly everything they might find is somebody else’s job. A cracked liner, a poor installation, an undersized flue, a stove fitted wrong — none of it is work they can carry out.
There is no incentive to look hard.
We fit these systems. We know what a correctly installed flue looks like because we install them, and we know what a badly fitted one looks like because we get called out to repair them. When we survey your chimney, we’re looking at it as the people who’d have to put it right.
And if it’s all fine, we’ll tell you that too. We’ve no interest in inventing work.
Power Sweeping — What It Actually Means
Traditional sweeping uses a brush pushed up the flue on rods. It shifts loose soot, and for an open fire burning coal that was usually enough.
Modern stoves are a different problem. They burn hotter and more efficiently, and what builds up isn’t loose soot — it’s hard, baked-on tar and creosote, particularly where wet wood has been burnt. A brush glides over it.
Power sweeping drives the head with a rotary drive, so it scours the flue rather than dusting it. It’s the only method that reliably removes glazed creosote, and it’s what we use as standard on every job, including the €90 sweep.
How Often Should a Chimney Be Swept?
- Wood or solid fuel, used regularly — twice a year. Once before the season and once during, or at minimum once a year at the start of autumn.
- Occasional use — once a year, before you start using it.
- Gas — once a year. It doesn’t soot up the same way, but it still needs checking.
The honest answer is that it depends more on what you burn than how often. A stove running properly seasoned kiln dried wood needs far less aggressive sweeping than one burning damp timber — and we’ll tell you which you’ve got.
Signs You Need a Survey, Not Just a Sweep
Book the camera survey rather than the sweep alone if you’re seeing any of these:
- Smoke coming back into the room when you light it
- The stove is slow to draw, or won’t get going at all
- Glass blackening far quicker than it used to
- A tarry or sour smell from the fireplace, especially in warm weather
- Debris or soot falls, or bird noise in the chimney
- Staining on the chimney breast, or damp patches upstairs
- You’ve had a chimney fire, however small it seemed
- You’re buying the house, or planning to fit a stove
Every one of those points to something a torch won’t show you.
Wet Wood Is Usually the Culprit
The single biggest cause of tar and creosote in an Irish chimney is burning wood that isn’t dry enough.
Wet wood doesn’t burn, it steams. Much of the heat goes into boiling water out of the log rather than into the room, and the unburnt gases condense in the cooler upper flue as tar. That’s what glazes your glass, coats your liner, and eventually catches fire.
We sweep chimneys and we supply kiln dried logs at under 20% moisture. So when we tell you the fuel is the problem, we can also solve it. Not many people can do both.
Buying a House, or After a Chimney Fire
Two situations where the full survey earns its money several times over.
Buying a house. A surveyor will note that a chimney exists. They will not tell you whether the liner is sound. If there’s an open fire or a stove in a house you’re buying, a camera survey before you sign is the cheapest peace of mind you’ll ever get — and it’s a lot cheaper than discovering a failed liner in your first winter.
After a chimney fire. A flue that’s had a fire in it should never be used again until it’s been properly looked at. The heat can crack liners and open joints in ways that are completely invisible from either end. However small the fire seemed, get it surveyed before you light it again.
What Happens if We Find a Problem
This is where being installers rather than cleaners genuinely matters.
A cracked liner, an undersized flue, a stove fitted without adequate ventilation, a hearth that doesn’t meet requirements, a terminal letting water in — we can identify all of it, show you the footage, explain it in plain terms, and put it right.
One contractor, one visit, one crowd accountable. You’re not left with a list of problems and a list of numbers to ring.
Clean, Tidy and On Time
Nobody wants a sweep who leaves soot on the carpet.
We sheet up before we start, use an industrial filtered vacuum throughout, and the room is left as we found it. We give you a time and we turn up at it — and if we’re running late you get a phone call, not silence.
The Full Chain, One Company
Most people deal with three or four outfits to keep a stove running: one to supply it, one to fit it, one to sweep it, someone else again for fuel.
We do the lot:
- Stoves supplied across every fuel type
- Full installation, including flue systems
- Hearths cut to measure in our own workshop
- Kiln dried logs and wood pellets delivered
- Sweeping, camera survey and servicing
Fifty years of doing all of it means somebody actually understands your whole system, rather than four people each seeing a piece of it.
Book Your Sweep or Survey
Ring us or send a message with your address and what you’re burning, and we’ll give you a time.
Not sure whether you need the €90 sweep or the full survey? Tell us what’s happening and we’ll tell you straight — including when the cheaper option is all you need.