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Still kept the open fire regardless of putting gas fire central heating in when we bought the house , as opposed to the coal fired which was in place when we bought it, I insisted we kept the open fire for just the reasons we have it for now ie roasting Chestnuts and toasting Marsh Mallows at Christmas and New Year.

Still got some logs left from the trees our neighbours had chopped down a couple of years back (Enough for this year and next) and I can get a right good blaze going with them.

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It's coming up to chimney sweeping time again. A colleague at work recently had the sweep round. He was in the house for barely 10 minutes and charged £40! My chap charges slightly more than half that

In reply to a, Ben, I live just north of Lewes, about 15 miles from Brighton. (b), Phil, no I'm not in orthopaedics but League of Friends coffee shop but I do a little brain surgery when I can fit in.

I swept my chimney last week but even at my age I still enjoyed going out to take a look at the brush poking up through the chimney pot  

We decided we'd go with a woodstove before I built the house, in winter, I load it up before we go to bed and shut the dampers down, keeps the whole house nice and cozy.

It's rated at 2500 square feet, so keeps this house warm...It does dry the air out, probably a good thing!

I cut my own wood and leave it to dry out over summer, so the costs are my time, couple of gallons of gasoline and two stroke oil for the chainsaw.

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We decided we'd go with a woodstove before I built the house, in winter, I load it up before we go to bed and shut the dampers down, keeps the whole house nice and cozy.

It's rated at 2500 square feet, so keeps this house warm...It does dry the air out, probably a good thing!

I cut my own wood and leave it to dry out over summer, so the costs are my time, couple of gallons of gasoline and two stroke oil for the chainsaw.

That's how I do it as well. There has been a resurgence of interest in woodburners but that has inflated the price of firewood; I advise anyone considering installing a wood-burner only to do so if they have access to a regular supply of free or cheap firewood, and I don't mean old pallets either.

One of the attractions of this place when I bought it was the range of fuels used; oil for heating, LPG for cooking, wood and coal (now wood only) for the stove. Means that if I do get a power cut I can still keep warm and cook a meal; though cuts, even in the worst of weather, are much less frequent nowadays than when I first lived in Pembrokeshire in the early 1990's.

It did prove a godsend last year when we had a serious house fire which knocked out the central heating boiler for seven months.

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:biggrin: When I was a kid it was a great experience, exciting even, to witness the Chimney Sweep's brush popping out from the top of the chimney - either my dad's or from those round abouts.

PS: I still keep an open fire, nothing like it for reading by or watching the telly on a Winter's eve - oh and I forgot, for toasting bread or pyklets / crumpets on................. :biggrin:

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How many times did you see brushes get stuck permanently sticking out of the chimney? A good chimney fire at night was quite a spectacle.

It's not too bad in the day time either...I can vouch for that!!

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My dad had a set of sweeps brushes and used to clean ours and a few neighbours when we lived in Lenton Abbey.

Remember standing outside waiting for the brush to pop out the chimney.

He used to go on the roofs to do some ! and I would stand and foot the ladder as he went up onto the crawl ladder with his brushes and a small pair of steps to reach the top of the pots !

Dont know how he did it as it was far from safe, and the health and safety of today would cringe at some of the situations he got into.

We used to have a wood burner here in oz till about 10 years ago, when the powers at be decided they were causing too much polution (this is in WA) which was a joke when you consider the bush fires and controlled burns they do !

They didn't ban them but made the cost of wood very prohibitive unless you lived on a bush block with your own supply.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Apologies katyjay and everyone else I was practicing posting and trying my hand at emoticons, it looks as though all went wrong somewhere down the line as it got posted when that was not my intention and most dissapointingly of all my emoticons didn't work.

Excuses, excuses eh. Is it possible for one of the moderators to delete my post for me please, the joke was rubbish anyway. Apologies again.

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wish we still had one beefy dont think ive ever been really warm since i left home with dad being a miner we always had great big roaring fires in the winter even in our bedroomswhen we moved to cavo my room being the box room did not have a fireplace the other two bedrooms did i could never get really warm at night in the winter unless i had hot water bottles my dad used to say i got dressed to go to bed .

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  • 2 years later...

Couldn't believe it recently when our lad told me he had just installed a wood burner in his new house in Arnold, I thought with the clean air act and all that they would never return.

He also is building a "fire pit" in his garden ! god forbid, wouldn't want to be his neighbours when that gets fired up.

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It's coming up to chimney sweeping time again. A colleague at work recently had the sweep round. He was in the house for barely 10 minutes and charged £40! My chap charges slightly more than half that. Both drive around in new, shiny vans, their names emblazoned on the sides.

 

It made me think about years ago when our chimneys...two fireplaces...were swept by Mr Glover who lived on Berridge Road. He lived with his wife and innumerable children in a little, very grubby looking house. The children were often to be seen in the early 60s, running barefoot round the street.

 

Mr Glover didn't have a telephone so when mum wanted the chimneys swept, we would walk up Berridge Road to do the shopping on The Green instead of along Gregory Boulevard and she'd knock on the door of the grubby house which was usually open. Little Mrs Glover would appear, a tiny, harassed looking female. She would tell mum which day to expect her husband and he never failed to turn up.

 

Instead of a Mercedes van, Mr Glover carried his brushes and rods in an old pram, walking miles per day in pursuit of his living. The job took far longer than today. He had no vacuum to suck up the soot from coal fires. It was carefully swept into a sack and, in the days when my grandfather was alive...it's 52 years ago this very day since his funeral...the sack would be emptied into a bin outside for use in the garden.

 

If I was at home, Mr Glover would ask me to run outside and look up at the chimney to see the circular brush emerge! I loved that!

 

All this cost something like 2/6d and after he and the pram had trundled away, it took mum a couple of days to remove the fine film of soot from every surface and before that unmistakable acrid smell disappeared from the house...until the next time.

 

Mr Glover and the house he lived in are long gone but I'll never forget his visits! How times change.

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I'm not quite that old, Loppy...getting there though!

 

Perhaps Mr Glover was shoved up the chimney as a boy although chimney boys in Victorian England tended to develop scrotal cancer...something to do with the carcinogens in soot. Judging by the number of children Mr Glover had, I doubt it!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I swept my chimney last week but even at my age I still enjoyed going out to take a look at the brush poking up through the chimney pot :)

 

36764091972_428d50298c_h.jpg

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/16/2013 at 12:52 PM, piggy and babs said:

more and more people seem to be going back to open fires or wood burners

 

Apparently wood burning stoves emit six times as much pollution as a diesel truck!  

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6402031/Wood-burning-stoves-emit-six-times-pollution-diesel-truck.html

 

 

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Cancer of the scrotum is an occupational hazard for chimney sweeps.

Mickey Smith was our sweep in Hucknall. He died from the disease as did his son who took over the business.

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Chimney fires were a regular call in the City Brigade. I once went to 17 on one day shift. We had to be crew-relieved at lunch time to get some grub !

Someone was always sent into the attic "to check it hadn't spread through faulty brickwork". Partly true, but we would write the date , out of sight on the chimney breast, when we arrived, the officer would ask "when did you have the chimney swept?"...……...         "oh , only 2 months ago ", the officer had already been told what date was on the brick and put her right (was always a woman in the house), sometimes there was 2 or 3 dates on the brick. 

They were always amazed at what a memory that officer had !

Great days...

Regards all

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