Sweeping your chimney is compulsory, at least once a year, to avoid the risk of fire.
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How do you know if you need to sweep your chimney?
Sweeping will be required depending on the use of your chimney, depending on the quantity and type of wood burned.
Professionals advise sweeping every 5 cubic meters of wood burned.
Anyway, the maintenance of the chimneys is obligatory at least once a year during the heating period of the chimney, according to the General Code of the territorial collectivities.
In some departments, it is even mandatory to carry out two sweepings per year for chimneys and boilers serving solid fuel heating appliances (wooden logs, pellets, coal, etc.) types of chimney flues, wood stoves and inserts or for ducts serving central heating installations.
To find out what your municipality recommends, ask your town hall or the prefecture.
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Can I clean my chimney myself?
Technically, you can clean your chimney yourself.
You can in particular carry out a chemical sweeping using a chimney sweeping log and scrape the walls of the flue using a hedgehog or a cane to clean it.
But this is a light maintenance of your chimney.
Legally, only mechanical sweeping is taken into account.
It must be carried out by a qualified professional.
The chimney sweep will issue you a chimney sweeping certificate in addition to your invoice, which legally certifies that the sweeping has been carried out.
Count between 70 and 120€ per intervention.
In the event of a claim, your insurance company will ask you for these documents and if you cannot provide them, you will not be compensated or may suffer a reduction in compensation.
Moreover, remember to check the clauses of your insurance contract: some companies require bi-annual sweeping.
Read alsoWhere to position your wood stove in the house?
Why is chimney sweeping mandatory?
Chimney sweeping is a legal obligation to prevent fires and ensure the safety of your home and its inhabitants.
As your fireplace is used, the smoke evacuation duct will fill with soot, ash deposits and residues from the combustion of wood.
Sweeping the chimney removes these residues from the walls of the pipe and prevents them from igniting and causing a fire or promoting its spread outside the conduit.
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Each year in France, more than 300,000 cases of house fires are detected according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Sweeping the chimney is therefore an essential preventive action.
Another danger in the event of faulty sweeping: the risk of gas poisoning, such as carbon monoxide poisoning, a painless and very dangerous asphyxiating gas.
If the chimney flues are blocked, the gases produced by combustion can no longer be evacuated and can cause toxic or even fatal fumes.
To know
You will incur a fine of €450 for failure to sweep in the event of an inspection.
Routine maintenance of your chimney and annual sweeping carried out by a professional are therefore mandatory preventive actions, which also allow you to save energy by improving the draft of your chimney and reducing environmental pollution.
