Sweeping the chimney

Does this annoy other home owners in Germany?
It's the law here that you have to have your chimney swept and boiler checked for emissions - so far so good. But - you have to use the chimney sweep allocated to your area (Bezirk). The guy that comes to our house isn't the sort of person I would normally let into my home let alone my bedroom where the access to the loft is!
I asked him if it was really necessary to sweep the chimney which has a stainless steel lining plus our gas boilers are new and low emission. Oh yes, he said, to get rid of the cobwebs! This cost? €57,-!

Our boiler is very old, so we do need the chimney sweep, we have another slight problem with him...

He turns up whenever he feels like it and just expects to be let in, immediately, to do his job. No phone call, no letter or post-card, just "Ich bin da!". If I'm at home, that is usually met with the curt response "Na und?" It makes no difference if there is a birth, christening, death, or even a good film on the telly - he's coming in, right there and then, no argument!

I guess it's traditional not to argue, he is supposed to be good luck. If the boiler is working better after he leaves then I think that's enough luck

I make him produce his chimney sweep ID... if he aint got it he doesn't get in

It's the same with charity collections, if they cannot produce the 100% bonafideeeee ID they get bugga...all

Exactly Slack.

Niel:

You don't have to let him in on the spot, they have no right of entry. He is supposed to at least let you know when he is intending to visit, and let you make an appointment at a time which suits you.

@Mike:
He does let us know in very good time, that's the problem.
When he's finished, he leaves with the detailed appointment info for the next time: "See you next year!"
Give or take a couple of weeks either side - he sticks to this without fail
Crafty as a cart load of monkeys! After all, he is a Chimney sweep

That doesn't count Niel, he is supposed to give an exact day and, when possible, a time. And give you the possibility to specify a day and time.

The law only says you have to have your chimneys and flues checked once a year by the local sweep. It doesn't say "any day and time when it suits him".

You don't have to let him in, if he just turns up sometime. If you say come back on that day, at that time, he has to observe that.

Here, you get a card through the door a week before, and you can either accept that day, or let him know a particular time and/or another day.

BTW: The chimney sweep bringing "glück" is not meant like a black cat bringing luck. The "glück" in this case is meant in the sense of security and peace of mind, happiness, because then your property is more protected against fire.

In times gone by, chimney fires were common, and the main cause of houses being burned-out. Today it's more often electrical faults which are the cause. A stainless steel tube just doesn't burn like a brick chimney, especially if it's attached to a gas or oil burning boiler.

We have similar problems with our chimney sweep, for many years he came to us around 0645 knowing he could catch us before we went to work. No problem. It took him ages though to understand that once we retired we didn´t appreciate being woken up so early. I guess most germans still get up early in retirement.
Now he just turns up when he feels like it and gets really upset if we are not at home. He will tell us he has been to the house three or four times and he has to make a special journey to our village just for us, when we tell him he would not have such a problem if he let us know in advance he says not possible as it would mean him making an extra trip just to let us know when he is coming!! obviously he has never heard of telephones or mail.

I'm glad to hear other people have similar problems!

@Mike: It's not really worth getting into a fight with the sweep, so we don't complain, all the neightbours go along with him, so we won't rock the boat just to be the outsiders. Once he's here, he is quick, effective and a nice enough guy. Our brick chimney through the (mostly empty) hay-loft will burn quite easily - 1907 farm-house here

We live in an area where there are an average of about 2 (and a bit) people per square kilometre. So, as it's a big trip, he just wants to do his 'round' for the day and of course as everyone is in all day, waiting for the sweep...he turns up when he wants!

Frequently, my neighbours tell me what I've been doing (as if I didn't already know), because they've been watching - typical countryside-folk! So the sweep thinks he always knows when we will be in. So it's a nice trick to be 'out' when he calls the first time, too early in the morning - isn't it jwn

We seem to have slightly hijacked the thread! I would complain if he looked like the scum of the earth and expected to waltz in to the house whenever he wanted, but he is OK really - just a bit insistent about doing things his way.

Oh and @Mike: Chminey sweeps are supposed to be lucky if you meet them on the street and get dirty from them, not just from the actual chimney sweeping. Some of his luck rubs off on you

Wenn man einem Schornsteinfeger auf der Strasse begegnet, so bringt es Glück

(you can tell that the board is a bit flat over the weekend eh?! )

A word of advice well a few words actually

DONT F*** with the Chimney Sweep.
They will shut down your heating system, well almost.

I don't know why The "bezerk"schornsteinfeger is a funny breed.

On a similar vein, some friends of the family in London lost their 5yr old daughter due to carbon monoxide poisoning coming from a dodgy boiler in the garage underneath her bedroom. Went to bed 100% healthy and never got up again.
Get yourself a CO alarm.

I'm not too sure how we got from 'dodgy-looking' sweeps and those that make their own appointments, to safety issues.

I have two little kids myself, so I am not messing about with any boilers, chimneys, etc.

I know sweeps do an important job, I never doubted it. The point is simply that they push their own luck. In my opinion they mis-use their monopoly on the local area and simply turn up when they want, no cards, no phone calls - it is just the same as jwm said.

More to the point might be (in the case of Flower Power), how do you complain about a sweep's behaviour, even at the showing ID and making meetings level?
Preferably without starting a fight with the sweep, like andy_y said, that wouldn't be a smart move!

Currently it is required by law ( a good example of over regulation) a few years ago they tried to change the law. Everybody complains about them, they have a lot of power.

an unemployed friend had to fork out 150€ or so to put up extra steps on the roof.

Perhaps every 5 or 10 years is often enough. Certainly never every year


Had one of those in Canada (sleep in basement) but never worked right.

Did notice that no one has smoke detectors

this is only distantly related to sweeping chimneys: I want tto shift my gas stove to a more convenient place in the kitchen but got plumbers' quotes for 600 euro to do the piping re-route. I thought I could solve the problem buy buying/renting a big gas bottle to connect to the stove, which means I could move it where I want? Anyone had any experience with this? Is it legal? (I'm not going to ask the landlord's permission, mine's a fruitcake)

sydney dont try it !!! if you have fitted gas pipes you have either "stadt gas" or "erd gas" bottle gas is either "butan or propan " gas, the presure on the gas pipes is about 0,2 bar, the presure in bottlea lot higher VERY DANGEROUS

I didn't know you had to use the chimney sweep guy allocated to your area.
My dad is a belgian plumber and roof worker but he lives really close to Germany (about 40k from Aachen) and a couple of years ago, hearing all the complaints about german maisters, he decided to pair up with a belgian buddy of his working in Germany for the belgian army and they registered there are maisters as well.
Since then, he has so much work from Germany that he can't keep up with it. And why ? Because he's charging a lot less than the germans, because he isn't difficult about anything, because he does everything himself (and doesn't call in a different maister for every sligtly different job) and because he also works evenings and weekends.
Results: the german customers love him (he even got called in to do a big job in Düsseldorf, even though it meant staying over in a hotel all week) and the german maisters HATE his guts. They even tried taking him to court saying that he was working without the proper permits and stuff.
Luckily he got everything sorted out properly before starting to work there so they didn't have a leg to stand on.
Anyways, I'm not advertising here but if anyone is interested in his services and you're living not too far from the Belgian border, you can PM me.

I love stories like that. When Germans find out their cosy form of capitlaism doesn't work in a single European market place, they run to the courts. They've had it too good for too long.

My sweep man, whatever it is you wish to call him, had the audacity to call at 7.30am this morning as I was safely counting sheep in the Land of Nod. I dont particularly mind such interruptions as these things need to be done - however, I am not convinced that his little 19th century chimney girl/boy (hard to tell) appreciated my choice of bedwear as I got a "you little piece of sh#t" look from here as she brushed past!

I love the customer service culture in this country!

This is quite an old topic, but I would like some help on it.

I have been renting our house for 2 years. Last year I asked the landlord about getting the chimney swept, and he told me that the man who controlled this area lived in Oberammergau and that he would visit us at some time to do the chimney. Nothing happened. I called the sweep, left messages on the answerphone - still nothing. So, the chimney was not swept.

So, its autumn again and so I am trying again. The landlord has faxed the chimney sweep (so he says) asking for him to call when he is next in the area. I have tried phoning from work, but have got the answerphone, and he does not return calls. We are worried about lighting the fire as we have no idea what the condition of the chimney is like. We presumed, always dangerous, that it had been swept before we moved in - wouldn't like to put money on that. Without any response from the sweep then will he come, or just ignore us again?

Can anybody give me some advice on what I should do next? Are chimney sweeps just rude/difficult/invisible whatever?

Light the fire.. If the chimney sets alight, the Fire brigade will sort it out, then there is no need for a sweep!!

Simple, Innit!?

There is a very interesting history of the sweeps in Germany. In Hitlers time they were used to spy on the population and report back anything they thought the Nazis would be interested in.

In return it was made compulsory to have the sweep. Some beleive that they still report back to local authorities today. But there is growing opposition to the whole thing even from native Germans.

It is certainly worth researching their history.