Are Chimney Sweeps Giving You a Hard Sell?

Ded. 30, 2004 -- Sooner or later, homeowners who have chimneys are going to have to get them cleaned, but chimney sweeps who come by with assessments of how much work is required may be blowing smoke.

In coordination with local consumer officials in Nassau County on New York state's Long Island, Good Morning America set up a "rip-off house" with hidden cameras and an undercover homeowner to check up on chimney sweeps' sales tactics as part of an ongoing series. The verdict: Watch out for a hard sell on chimney repairs that may not be necessary.

First, "GMA" had the rip-off house chimney inspected by Ashley Eldridge, the national director of education for the Chimney Safety Institute of America, the national organization that certifies chimney sweeps. Eldridge, recognized as one of the top chimney experts in the country, used a special camera to inspect the chimney.

"What I found was a typical 50-year-old chimney," Eldridge said after climbing up on the roof for the inspection. He found minor problems with the clay liner inside the chimney and recommended removing bricks that were sticking into the chimney near the bottom. But, Eldridge said, the chimney seemed to be working well the way it was.

Superhero Chimney Cleaner?

When "Good Morning America" producers tried to hire someone to do a routine cleaning on the same chimney, they got a different story from two different companies. The first chimney sweep, who was subcontracted by United Chimney of Bohemia, N.Y., had only spent five minutes doing an inspection when he suggested that the chimney was in terrible shape and that it was a job for a superhero: him.

"That's what they call me, the nightmare truck," the chimney sweep said. "I get all the nightmare jobs. They think I wear a cape."

Next, he made a sales pitch, saying that the homeowner should purchase a chimney liner because the chimney was blocked.

"What we're going to have to do is put a stainless liner down it," he said. "And I got to get the blockage out of the base. It's blocked up."