Warning for Chimney Sweep visit on Friday, September 7, posted on Tuesday, September 4th.
If I had a fireplace, I’d only have four days notice that the chimney sweep was coming to do his (her) regular maintenance. It’s little things like this that make life in Germany a wee bit difficult: I’m not going to be home this Friday – fortunately I don’t have a fireplace or an access panel to the chimney.
Would they break down the door if you were not around? You know, like those infrequent instances you’re 5,000 miles away from the apartment for a week?
They wouldn’t break it down for something like this — they can only break it down in the event of something truly serious, like a water leak.
You don’t need to have a fire place in order to have the chimney sweep come to your place. I don’t have a fire place and had shaken the hands of him just 2 days ago.
I don’t have a fireplace either but get a visit every year regardless. He comes to check the water boiler yoke (Durchlaufhitzer) in the kitchen. Usually a while before that someone else has come to clean it. Or maybe he comes to clean it and someone else comes later to check it. I get all the various people mixed up – such a difference to Ireland, where you could spend years begging the landlord to get someone to come and service the gas boiler and then they’d still try and make you pay for it.
But I agree, the short notice and wide time-ranges they give are a bit annoying. I did it for the first year so that I could see what they were doing (luckily had no problems from work as they’re all German and used to this kind of thing) and by the second year knew my downstairs elderly neighbour well enough to not feel uncomfortable leaving my key with her. If we’re not around for the appointment and don’t leave a key with someone else, we have to pay the cost of the new appointment that will be made.