We have been doing this since 1985.Mai-Rhea was about 6 months old
when we bought the existing business called
"John's Chimney Sweep."
Our Kids have grown up knowing
nothing but Chimney Sweeping
as the way money comes home
for food, cloths, toys, cars,
tuition, special events, trips, and missions.
For many yearsHector has always painted his trucks red.
There were a few of different color,
and even for many years an older
Volkswagen Van.
Below you will see some pictures of different jobs
Hector has done over the past 23 years.
In general we do from 400-600 chimneys per year,
with a couple years passing the 700 mark,
and in 1998 a low year with only 361.
At that point we thought the business
was going out of style,
but it bounced back with the
increase of natural gas prices.
Our busiest time of the year starts in September,
and starts to slow down in November
but continues right up to December 24th,
when we often get urgent calls from people
who suddenly realized that
Santa can't come down a dirty chimney.
After that, there are a few
each week through January,
and February and a
few more in March and April
when some people have theirs cleaned
at the end of the burning season.
Most people never think about what it takes
to clean a chimney,
and how dangerous it actually is,
especially once there is snow and ice
on the roof and the chimney itself.
Brace yourself and continue...
I was with Hector when he cleaned the chimney
at this next house. It was a very icy day,
and he had a hard time
finding a safe place to put the ladder.
In the end, he took the mat
from in front of the door,
placed it over the ice on the deck,
and the ladder on top of that,
and asked me to hold the ladder,
you can be sure
I prayed the whole time,
and was very glad when
he came back down safely.
This is actually one of the houses
that suffered from the wild fire in 2003.
Out of about 258 homes that were lost
on that fateful Friday evening,
we lost about 50 of our clients.
At least for several years,
and many of them rebuilt without a fireplace.
Thanks-Giving weekend 2001...
The boys were home from college,
and evidently Hector
managed to take Royce with him
up to Postal Lake Fishing Camp
to clean the chimneys in about 18 cabins,
it is a full day, of hustling from
one cabin to the next to get them all done.
Royce is standing on the right beside the ladder,
the other fellow was someone from the camp.
Walking the Ridge Pole.
December 2003
The Chimney season was winding down, and Hector was trying to fit the finishing up of the house we were building next door. It was the day our kids were traveling home with 2 cars. We had told them to stay together, in case either car should have trouble. The trip from CUC in Alberta to Kelowna in BC, is through the mountains, and in winter time we would worry about their safety. It turned out that they called about noon, and managed to misplace each other. The rule had always been to call home from Golden the 1/2 way mark in the 10 hr trip. That is when Ron called to say he didn't know where Royce and Mai were, had they called home?? I said No, stay there and wait for them. There is vast choice of gas stations to choose from, but they usually always went to the same one, so I hoped they would find together. Ronald waited for awhile, but thought that surely they had passed, and hadn't called home, so he continued (but I didn't know that) within an hour Royce called from Golden, and they didn't know where Ron was, but seeing he had called earlier we suspected he had continued on. I went next door to cleaning up for the new renters to move in. Hector was doing some trim. Suddenly, I barely heard him yelling at me over the noise of the machine I was using. It was urgent, and I got the message that he needed to go to the hospital.
We don't know if he was just tired from all the long hours he had been working, or if his mind was on the fact that the kids weren't traveling together, but something distracted him and he got his hand into the table saw. I got him into the car, and took him to the ambulance station just a couple blocks from our house, and upon arrival I phoned them to say I was outside and needed help fast. They took him to the hospital (I had heard you get faster service if you arrive by ambulance). I returned home, to check if the saw, and the machine I was using had been turned off, and I hoped that the kids would soon call and say they were together. Soon Ron called and said he was now in Revelstoke. At that point, I got him to understand that he had to wait for the other two to arrive, because they were behind him, and Dad was in the hospital and there would be no one to go rescue them if they had trouble. He got the message. I took the cell phone and went to the hospital, and just as I was walking in, they called to say Royce had arrived and they would stay together. Needless to say, the boys spent their vacation doing Chimneys Sweeping!!
(This is Ronald) Fall 2004
Sept 2005
2006, and again in 2007
Paradise Lake Fishing Camp.
This is half way to Merritt up the Connector route,
to the Coquihalla Highway.
We also get calls like...
"there is something in my chimney",
Hector has found many kind of birds,including this duck, and a beautiful big owl that was very happy
to fly away once the was captured and taken outside.
Our latest adventure.
On Wednesday November 21, I went with Hector to clean the chimney at the home of an elderly lady. She now says she is 90 years old. We have been doing her chimney since 1991. But in 2003 when the Okanagan Mountain Firestorm roared through our city her home was in it's pathway, and was completely destroyed. I had located her through the Red Cross, after all the evacuations had been sorted out. She had gotten herself situated somewhere a little closer to town. She told me right away she was going to rebuild, and once she did, she would call us again to clean the chimney. It took her 14 months to rebuild, and a year or so to need that new chimney cleaned, and we had a great visit with her. This is a picture of the rebuilt house, a relative had a copy of her house plans out in Toronto, and as soon as he heard about her disaster, he sent the plans back to her and she was able to rebuild an almost similar house. A few changes were made, and now the house actually has a driveway, the old one sat only 5 feet from the road, and the garage was up on the road and the only access to the house was by a walkway down a set of fieldstone stairs.
This picture is of the lake view she has from inside her house, and she is sitting in the corner, she didn't really want to be on the picture, and with the light behind her, she is silhouetted
She used to have an old fashioned wood cook stove in the kitchen, but was not able to replace that, so she now has this little stove, because she loves to have that heat in the kitchen.
Here Hector is doing the final touches, and cleaning out the inside of the fireplace, after he brushing all the soot down the chimney he comes inside, removes the newsprint that he had sealed it up with scoops most of into a bag, and then finally vacuums it out.
This is a picture of the clean fireplace. She was telling me that she wanted the fireplace to be very similar to the original one that she and her late husband had built back int he 60's. So she took the mason, up the hill from her house, and showed him where to pick the rocks from, and I guess he or someone brought them down and built this beautiful authentic "fieldstone" fireplace.
Erica laments that she lost all of her "Library" and most of her belongings, there was absolutely nothing left after the fire went through her part of town. But there was a fair warning, and she was able to save some of her antiques, including 3 of her 4 dining chairs, and her area rugs. She had friends come with a pick-up truck and took some of her stuff away before it was to late. Unfortunately something like this is very hard to choose what to take. Will the fire really come, or will all this effort be for nothing. If you do remove it from your house, where will you take it to?? What do you really need, and what is most important to you?? All of this has to be considered, and in the end people found that they took some of the strangest things as they fled their homes.
HO-HO-HO...
Just a few more chimneys before Santa Comes!!
