I had never arranged or observed a chimney being swept before – I guess when we were kids Mum had it done while we kids were at school, for obvious reasons- there were three of us.  So although we had once or twice lived in a house with a chimney it was never long enough to need to have it done, but I could have been pushing our luck there, though.  Still, with the onset of winter here, I decided although I’d procrastinated last year, it really had to be done this year. A friend gave the number of someone she used, and quite late saturday afternoon last week along came Washington and Mario on their motor bike with a neat little trailer behind containing the brooms, extension poles and gear, including respiratory masks I was pleased to see.  A few years ago no one would have bothered with such safety gear in this country – it is heartening to see hard hats, steel toe boots, back supporting belts, safety goggles and so on provided and know that their use is mandatory and monitored. 

I had to move the clutter off the mantlepiece, cover the computer with dust cloth and provide some logs of wood to anchor the huge plastic sheet in place along the shelf.  The floor rug was moved back and newspaper put down – as you can see in the photo that moved around during the process! but at the end it was all bundled up into a large plastic bag and they swept the floor of what little powdery soot was still there.  Mario climbed right into the fireplace, and even if my spanish was brilliant there is no way I could have worked out what on earth he was saying, but clearly these two are a well practised team and even understand jokes delivered with  masks over mouths and noses and a wall of plastic between them.  They came with a variety of brooms some of which they used and others no, I guess they’re prepared for all sizes and shapes of chimneys.  As they swept and moved the brushes higher and higher in the chimney one by one additional steel extenders were screwed on and pushed up the chimney, soot raining down on the newspaper on the floor of the fireplace behind the plastic.  

The whole process was reversed when the brushes come back down.   The verdict was it wasn’t very sooty considering we hadn’t swept it in the 6 years we’ve been here ( I had been a bit nervous about how much stuff was up there – we have wood fires all winter long, and chimney fires are dangerous)    Prep time and cleanup took around an hour – they were very particular – and it all cost a fraction of what I imagine it would cost in Aus or US – 800 pesos or around $40.  It was all fascinating and I remembered to take a couple of pics – oh, and yes, remembered to touch Washington on the sleeve for good luck  🙂  – yes, I am a bit superstitious, and who, knows, it can’t hurt, right?