Tracy man learns the ways of a chimney sweep to meet need in area

TRACY – After meeting his New Jersey wife, Danielle in Florida the couple returned to James Johnson’s home town of Tracy to raise their six children. They found a house at 149 Elm Street, complete with a fire place, but were told the chimney had never been cleaned.

That is one thing many home buyers are not aware of, according to Johnson.

“More people than not end up putting more money into their new home because the chimney hadn’t been kept up,” he said.

“That’s one thing we recommend,” his secretary/bookkeeper wife said, “is an inspection before people sign the paperwork.”

“No one wants to hear they have to put more money into the house, not the seller before the sale and not the buyer after the sale,” Johnson said. “There are a lot of chimneys in the area. A lot of these homes have ‘For Sale’ signs, but it’s not the job of a regular home inspector to inspect the chimneys. The buyer needs to get CSIA inspector to do it.”

“It falls under the ‘Buyer beware’ category,” Danielle said.

Johnson said they had searched for a few years to find someone who could sweep their chimney, but to no avail. After two years of cleaning his own chimney and those of friends, Johnson decided there was enough demand for him to learn more about it as a career.

He went to Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) in Indiana and took an intense, week-long course where he learned a great number of things regarding chimneys and fireplaces, like using a creosote log from the local department store is fine, but it doesn’t provide the complete job.

“It’s like just rinsing your dishes and not washing them,” Danielle said. “Most people just think of their fireplaces as fun and not dangerous.”

“They do not realize the risk they take building a fire inside the house, even when the chimney has been swept,” Johnson added.

Once Johnson went through the training, he added his new knowledge to the two years’ prior experience and went public with his business.

Some of the things Johnson learned at the CSIA school include but are not limited to wood stove cleaning, chimney inspection, fire place cleaning, dryer vent cleaning, fixing leaky chimneys and tuck-pointing

“I get up on the roof every chance I get to inspect a chimney from the top,” Johnson said. “I wear added protection while up there in case I fall. However, most of the time I work from the bottom. Most chimneys are too small for me to crawl into, but I usually get into the fire box to work. “

Johnson uses several different types of brushes, plus a heavy-duty water stream.

“I use rods and brushes to clean,” he said, Or, sweep, as he was taught to say. One can never get a chimney perfectly clean, so they say “sweep.”

Johnson graduated CSIA training in April, then opened his business to all of southwest Minnesota and southeast South Dakota and has been busy ever since.

The Johnsons named their business Dr. Flue, LLC.

When asked how he picked the name Dr. Flue LLC, he said, “There’s no funny story about that. We just found a little bit of humor in it.”

The “funny story” actually came after they had registered the name with the state. After that, they began to receive calls and mailings from people who thought they were a medical clinic.

Johnson is serious about flue safety, though.

“When you use your chimney, you dirty your flue,” he said. “One analogy is like using your stove for a holiday meal and you get it dirty. You would normally clean it right away and not wait until the next time you use it.”

With that in mind, Johnson recommends having the flue swept at least once a year, and preferably in the spring after you have used it during the winter.

“The creosote deposits are corrosive as well as carcinogens,” he said. “They will eat through the lining of the chimney, the tiles or mortar. The less time in contact with them the better.”

Johnson added that it is just as important for people who burn fuel oil or natural gas to have their chimneys swept regularly, too. Sulfur residue can mix with moisture, such as rain, and create sulfuric acid, which is also harmful. That residue should be removed also.

A traditional custom the CSIA graduates perform is to wear all black, including a top hat, as they approach a client’s house. The hat comes off after they’ve been to the door, then the Tyvek suit goes on, including a respirator and gloves for total protection from the fallout.

Johnson also cleans up after himself and has had compliments regarding the fact that he is the only serviceman some clients have ever had who have kept their promise on that.