The annual sweep
Rods and brush from the top, a Level 1 from the bottom, and the report in your hand at the door. One flue or four — a house with a fireplace and a furnace has two.
Sweeping, inspection, caps and liners · Stafford and Fredericksburg
You lit the first fire and the room smelled of smoke. Here is what it costs to sort out.
Tell us how many flues, what burns in them and how long it has been. You get a price range in about a minute, the trip already inside it. Then we come, put the drop cloths down, and you get the written Level 1 before we leave.
CSIA-certified technicians
Dust-sealed, HEPA-vacuumed
Level 1 in writing, every sweep
Instant price range
Not ready for a price?
The trip is in the price$95 for the van, the drop cloths and the vacuum, quoted up front. Nothing appears at the door.
We sweep it, we do not sell you a linerIf the flue is sound we say so and leave. If it is not, you get photographs and a choice.
Inside the flue is oursSweeping, inspecting, relining, caps and dampers. Brick, mortar and flashing above the roof is a mason’s.
Book it in July, not OctoberFrom October 1 the book is full and the rate reflects it. The same flue is cheaper in the summer.
What we do
Everything from the damper to the top of the flue
Drop cloths down, the firebox and the smoke shelf vacuumed, the Level 1 written up before we leave, and the mess goes out to the van with us. A sweep that leaves soot on your carpet is not a sweep, it is a visit you will be cleaning up after all evening.
Stainless caps, fitted on the day
Rain, leaves and squirrels stay out and the cap outlives the galvanised one it replaced by twenty years. Cheapest fitted on a visit you are already paying for.
Top-sealing dampers
A throat damper that will not close is a hole in the roof of your house all summer. A cable-operated damper seals at the crown, where the original never did.
Chimney inspection for a sale or a claim
A Level 2 with the camera down every accessible flue, joint by joint, and a written report with the stills in it. Usually the same day.
Inserts, stoves and gas log sets
An insert packs a flue harder than an open fire and most of them come forward to be swept, so it costs more. A gas set makes no creosote at all, so it costs less. Both are on the form.
Relining, smoke problems and chimney fires
A fireplace that smokes back into the room, glazed creosote that will not brush off, or a chimney that has had a fire in it. We come and look at those.
How we price
By the flue, and the trip is already in the number
The form at the top of this page uses our real rates. It shows a range rather than a single number because how much is actually in the flue, and what the cap on top turns out to be, are things we can only settle on your roof.
Count the flues
Flues, not fireplaces — one stack often carries two or three. Then what burns in it, how long since the last sweep, and how we get to the top. The same questions we ask on the phone.
See the range
Midpoint plus or minus 10%, with the $95 trip inside it. Nothing quotes under our $185 minimum. Anything over $2,500 gets a visit instead of a number — past that you are buying a liner, not a sweep.
We sweep and confirm
Written Level 1 at the door, travel priced from your ZIP, and our first-fire schedule (+15%) applies from October 1 to December 31, because in those weeks the sweeps around here are booked out and a slot given to you is one taken from somebody who called in August. Chimney inspection for a sale or a claim carries no seasonal rate at any time of year — a settlement date does not care what the weather is doing, so that service prices how soon you need it instead.
Service area
Based in Stafford. We say what the trip costs before we make it.
Your ZIP code sets the travel line on your estimate. On a job this size a trip fee is a real share of the number rather than a rounding error, so you get to see it before you book rather than after.
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Local: Stafford, Garrisonville and AquiaZIPs 225xxNo travel fee
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Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania and King GeorgeZIPs 224xx+$25
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Prince William, Quantico and up I-95ZIPs 220xx and 221xx+$45
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Everywhere else we travelAny other ZIP we can reach+$85 and +5%
Notes for anyone evaluating the demo
- Priced path. Pick Chimney sweep and safety inspection, then:
1flue, an open masonry fireplace burning wood, last swept three to five years ago, two stories, fit a stainless single-flue cap, damper No, nothing nesting No. Use ZIP22554. The live pricing engine returns $616 – $753 with the disclaimer, and the lead lands in the demo account’s inbox. That is the job this business does more than any other — a sweep, a Level 1 and a new cap on one two-story house: the $95 trip plus one flue at $135 plus the $285 cap is $515 of dollars, and the soot band (+18%) and the two-story band (+15%) pool to +33% and apply once to all of it, for a midpoint of $684.95. - The base fee is inside the percentage pool, and that is worth seeing once. qf_price() starts the additive figure AT the service’s base fee, so the $95 trip is marked up by the same +33% as everything else — about $31 on this job. On a trade where the ticket is a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand, that is not a rounding error, and it is the reason the roof question’s help text says the percentage is figured across the whole visit rather than pretending it lands only on the sweeping.
- Percentages pool, they do not compound. +18 and +15 add to +33%, not to a 1.18 × 1.15 that would land at +35.7% and about $14 higher on this job. It is the version a homeowner can follow on the phone, which is why the engine does it that way.
- Where the pooling is a compromise, said out loud. A pooled percentage lands on the whole additive figure, cap included. The roof band genuinely should reach the cap — fitting one on a steep slate roof really is harder — but the soot band should not, and it does: about $51 of the $685 midpoint. The tech trues that up at the door, and the help text says the soot answer is “figured across the visit” rather than implying a per-flue rate.
- The per-flue rate is the only thing that multiplies. Flue count is a
multiply; fuel, soot age and roof access are percentages; the cap and the damper are flat amounts added once for the visit however many flues there are. Strip the priced path back to the bare job —1flue, open fireplace, swept within the last year or two, one story, no cap, no damper, nothing nesting — and you see the rate on its own: $207 – $253, a $230 midpoint, which is exactly $95 + $135. Then take the priced path and leave the cap off, which is the annual sweep most people book: $275 – $336. From there, one answer at a time and everything else held still — two flues instead of one is $437 – $534, a wood stove or insert instead of an open fire is $321 – $392, and a seized damper to replace is $832 – $1,017. - A negative option, which most demos do not have. A gas log set makes no creosote, so that visit is an inspection, a vacuum and a draft check — the option is minus 20%, and it is the cheapest thing this account sells.
1flue, gas appliance, swept within a year, one story, nothing else: the arithmetic comes to $184, under the $185 minimum, so it quotes $185 – $204. Note the low end of the band is the floor itself, not 10% below it. - A rule that raises the floor instead of adding a fee.
1flue, open fireplace, never swept since they moved in, one story, no cap, no damper, and Yes to “is anything nesting in it, or is it blocked”: the work itself is $322, but the rule lifts the minimum to $385 and the quote comes back $385 – $424. Removing a nest and then sweeping is a different visit from sweeping, and that job has never come in under it. Chimney swifts are protected while they are nesting, which the help text says rather than leaving the tech to explain it on the doorstep. - Travel zone. Repeat the priced path with ZIP
22401(Fredericksburg): $639 – $781. With22192(Woodbridge, back up I-95): $657 – $803. Any ZIP outside the listed prefixes, whether20017(Washington) or75001(Texas), falls to the catch-all zone: $724 – $885, the percentage first and then the flat fee. On the bare $230 sweep that same catch-all zone gives $294 – $359 — the trip is then nearly a third of the ticket, which is honest arithmetic and also the reason we do not chase single sweeps up the interstate. - Out of area. Use ZIP
99901. The visitor gets a polite decline instead of a price, and the lead is still captured. - Over the ceiling. Enter
4flues, a wood stove or insert, never swept since they moved in, three stories or a steep slate roof, a stainless multi-flue chase cover and cap, damper Yes. The midpoint works out at $3,676.40, clearing the service’s $2,500 ceiling, so the widget routes to “we’ll come and look” rather than printing a number. That ceiling is set where it is on purpose: past $2,500 you are not buying a sweep, you are buying a liner, and a liner is the third service. - The second instant service, and the one that refuses a season. Pick Chimney inspection for a sale or a claim:
1flue, a house being bought or sold, two stories, on the lender’s own form Yes, inside five business days, fireplace in use No, ZIP22554. $515 – $605 — a Level 2 with the camera and a written report — and the $145 for the trip and the camera is inside that number rather than added at the door. Move it to we are at the settlement table this week and it is $592 – $695; two flues after a chimney fire, on the insurer’s form, is $923 – $1,083. The cheapest possible answer set floors at the service minimum: $345 – $373. Its ceiling is $1,500, which four flues on a three-story slate roof after a fire clears at $1,833, so that one routes: at that point somebody is spending a day on a roof and it is a survey, not a form quote. Its band is 8% rather than the sweep’s 10%, and TIGHTER on purpose: an inspection is a fixed time and a fixed report, where a sweep is however much is actually in there. - The season sits on one service, and it is an uplift rather than a discount. Chimney sweep and safety inspection carries the first-fire schedule, +15% from October 1 to December 31. Start is before end, so the engine matches it with AND rather than the OR branch a wrap-around range takes. It prices a real thing: people light the first fire on the first cold weekend, smell smoke and call, and from October the sweeps around here are booked out for weeks. That is a capacity constraint on scheduled work, which is the one thing a seasonal percentage can price honestly. Re-run the priced path with
--date=2026-11-15and it comes back $709 – $866 instead of $616 – $753; the bare sweep goes from $207 – $253 to $238 – $291. Chimney inspection for a sale or a claim carries no season at all, and that is a decision rather than an omission: an inspection before a house sale is not the same demand curve as a sweep in November, because it is set by a settlement date and a settlement date does not care what the weather is doing. Run its priced path with--date=2026-11-15and it is still $515 – $605. What that service prices instead is the thing that really is urgent about it — how soon the report is needed — as its own question, where the visitor can see it and change it. Both branches of the engine’s season handling are therefore exercised on this one page. - Routing mode, and the number this page will not print. Pick Relining, smoke problems and chimney fires. That service is in site-visit mode, so it never shows a price at all; the visitor sees “we like to see it first”. None of its questions carries a pricing rule — including the one that asks how far it is from the damper to the top of the flue, whose help text says out loud that the answer is for loading the van and not for the price. A stainless reline runs $2,500 to $6,000 in this market and this page never prints that as an engine figure, because the fixture cannot compute one. A liner is priced by what is in the way: how many offsets the flue takes, whether the old clay tile has to be broken out before an insulated liner will pass, and a height nobody can guess from the garden. There is no rate card for that, which is exactly the condition site-visit mode exists for — the same discipline the masonry demo keeps for natural stone.
- Where this account stops, and it agrees with the page on the other side of the line. Everything priced here is INSIDE the flue: sweeping, inspection, relining, caps and dampers. The outside of the stack above the roofline — brick, mortar, crown and flashing — is a mason’s work, a different license and a different truck. It appears in this fixture exactly once, as a routed case on the site-visit service, and that question’s help text hands it to a mason rather than quoting it. Keystone Brick & Stone, the masonry demo, says the same sentence from its own side: it rebuilds a stack and it will not sweep, inspect, reline or fit a cap. The two accounts meet at the flashing and neither crosses it, and a homeowner who arrives at the wrong one is told so on the question.
- Two questions carry no pricing rule at all, on purpose. On the inspection service, “is the fireplace being used at the moment” moves no money — it decides whether the tech brings a smoke pencil for a cold-start draft test. On the site-visit service, the flue-height number is validated between 5 and 60 feet and priced at nothing. Both prove the widget renders and validates an answer that changes no figure, which is a legal and useful thing for a service to ask.
- The photo question carries no rule. Photos never move the price — the engine skips them entirely. Nothing is uploaded either: on a demo the visitor can tick “I have photos I can send” and the lead records “Has photos to send, not uploaded”, which is the owner’s cue to ask for pictures on the call. Attaching the image itself is on the roadmap.
- The missed-call text-back. The CallMitt page replays which of five messages a missed caller would get and why. Straight about where it stands: nothing on this platform delivers a text message yet, because there is no SMS gateway and no carrier registration, so the reply becomes an outbox row marked queued and stops there. The rules, the hours, the quiet hours and the opt-out handling are built and running.
- The widget’s ember brass matches this site because the account’s key carries a theme color; the same script on an agency’s client site would carry the agency’s color.