Richmond Hill conditions that change how chimney cleaning & sweep is done
If you mapped our Richmond Hill service calls on a calendar, you would see the same shape every year: the problems are created in February and paid for in November.
Range hoods and basement bathroom fans routinely out-pull an older flue, so the house depressurises and the flue reverses — a Richmond Hill problem that looks like a chimney fault but starts elsewhere in the building.
Air-sealing and window upgrades have made Richmond Hill homes far tighter than they were designed to be, and a tight house starves a natural-draft appliance of the make-up air it needs.
Across Observatory, Devonsleigh, Harding, Elgin Mills and Headford, the housing stock changes street by street, and the correct method changes with it. A century home with a soft-brick stack does not get the same treatment as a 2010 build with a factory-built vent — using one method on both is how systems get damaged.
the practical takeaway is that a chimney cleaning & sweep visit should start with an assessment, not a tool. Any crew that begins work before telling you what they found is guessing on your behalf.