Something just a little bit different this week, a customer’s house name, but a name with a difference. This unusual name was on a customer’s house where I swept recently in Halstead. I was baffled by the house name as it did not appear to be in English, but the clue to its meaning is in the picture of a chimney on the house sign. Perplexed I asked the customer what it was all about. The lady who originates from Scotland informed me that it was a Scottish good luck saying, and not as I had thought, about smelly chimney! The Scottish saying goes “lang may your lum reek”; which means long may your chimney smoke or may you have a long and contented life. Lum being Scottish for chimney. It was originally a traditional Hogmanay toast, but has passed into English usage in Scotland. It is used primarily as a toast when drinking or as a farewell. So in many ways this saying is much more than just about a smokey chimney!

I very recently found this bird of prey up a large inglenook chimney in a thatched property at Tindon End. Looking at the colouring and plumage of the bird, I think it was a Kestral, but I could be wrong, I’m no ornithologist! As can be seen in the photo the bird was brown and mottled black on its top surface and had black wing tips. What I couldn’t understand was why having got into the chimney the bird didn’t just simply fly out again. The chimney was very large all the way up, about 6’ x 4’ and wasn’t particularly tall at about seven and a half metres. I found the poor thing just lying on top of the register plate close to one of the inspection hatches. I imagine that it must have been ill or injured and had flown into the chimney for safety and simply died there; but this is merely speculation on my behalf.

A search of the internet reveals a number of strange things found up chimneys, some of which are humorous, interesting and even lucrative!

Cash

In the UK, police found £871,495 up the chimney stack in the Bradford home of Baber Bashir, a conman who had acquired his ill-gotten gains largely through an unspecified fraud. Found tucked in his chimney, the cash amounted to just around $1.5 million USD by today’s standards, making it easily the most valuable chimney in Bradford. That is, before all the money was confiscated by the police and Mr. Bashir and company were locked up for their crimes.

Birds

Researchers at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario made a strange discovery in a decommissioned Chimney in a campus building – over fifty years’ worth of bird droppings. Researchers dug in (literally) and found that the bird droppings showed sharp decreases in beetles in the diet of insect-eating birds that frequented the chimney. The dramatic decline of the beetle population was due to the use of the infamous chemical DDT, which the beetles were especially susceptible to.  This, in turn, lead to a decrease of the population of the swifts that used the chimney, further damaging the already notorious reputation of the DDT compound.

Cats & Shoes

On the other side of the world in Australia, you might not be too surprised to find a dead cat or a shoe inside your chimney. Reason being, early Australian settlers were very superstitious, and often would hide either a shoe or, in some more morbid cases, a dead cat inside their chimneys. The practice is believed to have come to Australia by way Britain from an ancient Roman practice to ward off evil spirits. Homeowners put these totems in parts of their homes where evil spirits might lurk.

A Burglar

Believe it or not, Santa can serve as an inspiration for more than just altruism. In Georgia, an Atlanta area teen took a page out of the red-suited man’s book when he tried to burglarize a home by slipping through the chimney. After spending ten hours overnight trapped in the flue, he finally cried for help and caught the attention of a neighbor who called the police. After getting pulled from the flue, he went from out of the fire and into the frying pan as he was immediately arrested. To add fuel to the flames, the would-be-burglar made another poor choice by providing police with a false name when they arrested him, really putting him in ‘hot water’.

A Letter to Santa Written in 1912

On a lighter note on the Santa side of things, a Dublin, Ireland man found a note to Santa when cleaning his fireplace; but not just any note. This note, believed to be penned by Hannah and Alfred Howard, somehow survived 100 years on a shelf on the inside of the fireplace. Despite constant use of the fireplace throughout that entire time, the letter has only a small amount of burn damage and is in remarkably good condition. Featuring a detailed, if terse, list of toys and treats the two children desired, it ends with a friendly ‘Good Luck’, and has a few illustrations to go along with it.

A Dead Body

There’s no shortage of bodies found in chimneys, as they seem to make a good hiding place for less-savory characters, but this particular body has a pretty interesting history behind it. Joseph Schexnider, a former National Guard serviceman, was due to appear in court in 1984, an appearance that he never made. Known in his family for frequently skipping town, they thought little of it. For twenty-seven years, they presumed that he was on the lamb from charges of possession of a stolen vehicle. Then, in May of 2011, the local bank began renovating it’s second floor, previously used only as storage space. Inside the chimney they discovered Joseph’s remains. He hadn’t suffered any broken bones or apparent trauma, so investigators ruled the death accidental.

I swept this unusual but rather attractive French Mirus Wood-Burning Stove very recently in a property in Mill Lane Saffron Walden. The stove is unusual in that the fuel is not loaded from the front, but from a side door. Looking on the web it is easy to see that these antique Mirus stoves are very sought after and achieve very high prices when sold on. It would appear that Mirus were making stoves in the early part of the 20^th Century, a number I looked at were made in the 1920’s.

Unfortunately for the customer I had to condemn the installation as being unsafe to use, as can be observed from the photos, the stove pipe was not securely fixed to the bottom of the liner. As can be seen the stove pipe had been secured using a jubilee clip, when this had failed a piece of chicken wire had been used. This is always a difficult moment for the sweep, who must tactfully point out the defects and negotiate a solution. In this instance the customer was very reasonable and could immediately see the fault and recognize that it required remedying. The customer added that it wasn’t the first problem he had encountered since buying the property, adding that the previous occupier from whom he had bought the property was a ‘bit of a bodger’!

I suggested when the customer has the repair undertaken, he have the elbow removed and replaced with a T-Piece which will collect any soot coming down the flue and to have a sweeping hatch fitted to the stove pipe.

Time for another thatched animals’ picture, I’ve not had one on the blog for sometime now! This time it’s running hares as opposed to the boxing hares I’ve posted previously. This picture was taken on a thatched cottage’s roof between Finchingfield and Stambourne; so very much a local thatchamals picture.

I have also found an appropriate seasonal poem about hares:

A Calendar of Hares by Anna Crowe

At the raw end of winter
the mountain is half snow, half
dun grass. Only when snow
moves does it become a hare.

If you can catch a hare
and look into its eye
you will see the whole world.

That day in March
watching two hares boxing
at the field’s edge, she felt
the child quicken.

It is certain Midas never saw a hare
or he would not have lusted after gold.

When the buzzard wheels
like a slow kite overhead
the hare pays out the string.

The man who tells you
he has thought of everything
has forgotten the hare.

The hare’s form, warm yet empty.
Stumbling upon it he felt his heart
lurch and race beneath his ribs.

Beset by fears, she became
the hare who hears
the mowers’ voices grow louder.

Light as the moon’s path over the sea
the run of the hare over the land.

The birchwood a dapple
of fallen gold: a carved hare
lies in a Pictish hoard.

Waking to the cry of a hare
she ran and found the child sleeping.

November stiffens
into December: hare and grass
have grown a thick coat of frost.

An unusual item literally for this weeks blog, something found up a flue which really shouldn’t have been there! The customer had asked me in to sweep the lined flue to her old Rayburn Range at a property in Radwinter. The customer reported that despite having had the appliance swept religiously for many years it had not been working as efficiently as it had done for a number of years. There was nothing too unusual about the installation, a couple of 45 degree turns in the flue, sweeping access from the appliance and a standard cowl on the top of the flue.

I swept the flue using 8mm power sweeping click rods and small scrubber head and retrieved from the flue the small brush pictured, along with a quantity of sooty debris. A simple type 2 smoke test demonstrated that the flue was now drawing strongly. I suppose to add insult to injury the removed brush was only half the diameter of the flue pipe and therefore would never have been suitable for cleaning the flue effectively. I’m guessing that it had become stuck in one of the turns or the cowl and that the power sweeping head was powerful enough to dislodge it. The dishonest tradesman, I won’t grace him with the title sweep, clearly didn’t tell the customer that he had lost a brush up the flue and made no significant attempt to retrieve it!

The customer told me that one of her previous sweeps had been an old man who always struggled to sweep the Rayburn and never issued her with a Sweeping Certificate! She said that she stopped using him after she came into the kitchen one hot summers day when he was sweeping the Rayburn and found him sweating, stripped to the waist and blaspheming.

I suppose the moral of the story is to always use a Certified Sweep to do any sweeping work!

I recently swept this Yeoman County Multi-Fuel Stove with its rear flue and T-Piece. This and the smaller Exmoor Multi-Fuel Stove are unusual in the Yeoman Range in that they have a contemporary appearance with their large window to the firebox. This monster has a 13Kw rating and the owner tells me that it throws out a terrific amount of heat once it is in full operation. This stove and the smaller Exmoor do have one traditional feature that all Yeoman stoves have, the Tudor Rose emblem. However, on this stove as with the Exmoor, the Tudor are actually the primary air intake controls.

Yeoman Stoves are now owned by stovax, but you can find them at:

Yeoman Stoves,

Falcon Road,

Sowton Industrial Estate

Exeter, EX2 7LF

Technical Enquiries: 01392261950
Customer Services: 01392474500

County

I haven’t included a thatched animal in the blog for some time now, so I thought I would present this example from a roof in Ashdon. Clearly, this is an owl, but what type? Is it a Barn owl, Tawney owl or Little owl? Yes, there are six species of owl in the UK; Barn, Tawney, Little, Long Eared, Short Eared and European Eagle Owl.

Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, which includes about 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers adapted for silent flight. Exceptions include the diurnal northern hawk-owl and the gregarious burrowing owl.

Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish. They are found in all regions of the Earth except polar ice caps and some remote islands. Owls are divided into two families: the true (or typical) owl family, Strigidae, and the barn-owl family, Tytonidae.

Man has long had a soft spot for owls. We’ve been around these creatures an awfully long time and are held in thrall by a mysterious bird that’s seldom seen in daylight, yet is master of the night: often heard, but hardly ever seen. Most woodland owls are nocturnal or crepuscular – active at dawn and dusk – and like to tuck themselves away in a daytime roost.

Whether you’ve observed five long-eared owls roosting in thick blackthorn, a barn owl hunting a road at dusk or a little brown owl peeping out from a hole in a tree, the one feature they all have in common is the stare, which, along with a parliament, is a collective noun for wise old owls.

What ever their collective noun is, I think this specimen from Ashdon is a particularly attractive bird! How about some Owl poetry?

The Wise Old Owl

A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?

By Billy Mills

Late Night Ramblings

As the moon shines
And the stars decorate the sky,
A lonely owl hymns
While the bats fly.
Lightning bugs scatter around
Like will-o’-the-wisps at night,
Without any sound
Oh, what a delight!
The neighbour’s hound is on guard
She will not allow anyone to pass,
No one is allowed in her yard
At this hour, only a fool will walk on her grass.
Her howl pierces the air
Bringing an end to the silence,
She announces she won’t share
She will not tolerate any form of violence.
Across the street, few floors above
Two players are taking their turns,
In the famous game of push and shove
While a tiny candle burns.

By Tanay Sengupta

I recently swept this very attractive Aga Little Wenlock Classic Multi-Fuel Stove in a house in Wood End Widdington. I also ordered and returned to replace the rear ceramic firebrick in the stove; the original having almost completely crumbled away after 16 years of use. As is clearly visible in the Photo this stove is unusual because it has a black enamel finish. I think it is rather attractive, however Aga quickly discontinued this model as the enamelled version did not sell at all well. A shame, I think, don’t you?

As usual I ordered the part from Fire Spares in Barnsley West Yorkshire:

Unit 4 Park Spring
Springvale Road
Grimethorpe
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S72 7BQ

01226 715100

Because of my membership of the Guild of Master Sweeps I was able to obtain a substantial £25 discount which I was able to pass on to a grateful customer.

Here is an example of some of the minor repairs I do on some of the woodburning stoves I get to sweep. I discovered that this rather attractive Chesney Beaumont 6 Stove required a little servicing attention when I attended to sweep the flue this year. As you can see from the photographs, the rear and right-hand side firebricks were in a number of parts and the integrity of the brick was beginning to fail; putting the stove casting in danger of damage.

I ordered the required bricks from a Company called Fire Spares based in Barnsley West Yorkshire:

Unit 4 Park Spring
Springvale Road
Grimethorpe
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S72 7BQ

01226 715100

I was able to order and pay for the items on the phone and the were dispatched out to me the following day, excellent service. I was also able to get a 25% trade discount on the parts because of my membership of the Guild of Master Sweeps. I was then able to reattend the address and fit the parts. The customer is now pleased and set up for some safe winter burning!

Chesney are a British company who amongst other things interior design, do a wide range of contemporary and traditional wood-burning stoves:

Battersea Park Road

194-202 Battersea Park Road,
London, SW11 4ND

0207 6271410
0207 6221078
sales@chesneys.co.uk

https://chesneys.co.uk

A good news story this week! Here is a Clearview 750 Stove that I swept in Steeple Bumpstead not too long ago. Its an impressive stove, the largest on in the Clearview range. It has a phenomenal heat output of 14Kw. As you can see from the photograph, I used my large Viper to sweep it; a piece of equipment specially designed by the Germans for sweeping lined appliances. It is basically old-style sweeping rods, but on a continuous real, so no time is wasted fitting rods together. A very fast, efficient and clean method for sweeping a chimney. This Clearview stove worked so efficiently over the last burning season it produced only a very fine soot when it was swept. This shows to the sweep that the stove is working well and has been burnt efficiently, i.e. nice and hot with plenty of oxygen being allowed into the stove.

Clearview are a British company based in Bishops Castle, Shropshire:

Clearview Stoves

Bishops Castle,

Shropshire,

SY9 5GB

01588 650401

https://www.clearviewstoves.com