An Interview with a Sweep

An Interview with a sweep……..Peter Stubbings

Peter lives in a small village in Hampshire and his business Stubbys Chimney Sweeping covers the local area of Hampshire and Surrey.

Q. How long have you been sweeping chimneys and how did you get started?

A. We are looking around 12 years now but with a very slow start. There’s something strange in the fact that I always found the industry interesting and a general conversation with a friend left me thinking that it’s never too late to learn something new or find something else. After some work-based experience, I decided it was something I wanted to get better at.

Q. What first attracted you to the business?

A. I have a photo where at the age of about 10 I went to school on book day as Oliver Twist (not strictly a sweep as he just swerved that) but the dress sense was the same and I’m sure that’s how my mum pictured it. I was always fascinated when the sweep visited so I guess you could say it was an ageing interest.

Q. Is sweeping your full-time business? If not, what else do you do?

A. Chimney sweeping is now full time for me and has been for about five years. Although over the last two years we have been playing with a few installs. My wife handles that side of the business now.

Q. Do you work alone? If not, who helps you and how?

A. 50% of the time I work alone and the rest of the sometimes during the busier months we have a Chimney sweeps assistant which has known to have been my wife or my father in law!

Q. What did you do prior to chimney sweeping?

A. Prior to chimney sweeping myself and my wife had built a window cleaning company. When we reached around 25000 customers, we franchised the business and after a few years we were made an offer for our share, and it seemed like a good time to pass the business on.

Q. What do you like most about being a chimney sweep?

A. I love all aspects of my job; I love that I wake up in the morning not feeling like I’m off to work but quite possibly I love the look on peoples facing when they say “what do you do for work?”

Q. What do you like least?

A. I have an extremely sensitive sense of small so smelly houses, and I mean properly smelly absolutely kill me. Thankfully I have very few.

Q. What do you like to do when you are not working?

A. We have an eight-year-old son that is into everything so from rugby to football practice to then watching Spurs or Harlequins live we are pretty non-stop. We have a camper van so long weekends away are very common. I’m a Goodwood member so there’s lots of weekends filled with motorsport too.

Q. How long have you been involved with the Guild and why did you join?

A. I must be heading towards year five of being a Guild member. Originally I was thinking that after so much time sweeping I needed to make myself look more professional, and after an online search the Guild looked like it suited my needs.

After having a chat to Dave Wooffindin, I reluctantly paid for the course at Poujoulat and trotted along to attend. I probably entered the course with the wrong mindset thinking that I knew everything, and this was just a process but I was certainly proved wrong. The course was amazing and actually made me think of things in a completely different way. Gavin Cater put the course across brilliantly and really ignited my passion for sweeping again and made me realise that there was a higher level to be reached and offer the client. Now I’m an extremely proud member of the Guild and talk to everyone about it.

Q. Have you ever found anything interesting inside a chimney?

A. I’ve come across a couple of very good smoking rooms up in big inglenooks and have found some old brushes on one occasion but that’s about it. This year I found a postcard with a King George stamp that dated back to

Q. What is your most memorable sweeping experience?

A. I sweep a grade 1 listed property built in 1815 and there is a fireplace in the Library. The fireplace itself has like a u bend on the rear of it and the flue actually goes down and into the floor. Under the floor a brick flue pipe travels 25 feet horizontally to the stack in the next room that it then travels 15 rods up and out. You have to sweep from multiple spots in the house one being under the floor which you enter via a hatch under a rug. Thankfully it isn’t really used.

Q. How do you view the future of chimney sweeping and what do you think the role of a chimney sweep should be?

A. Oh good question, the future is big, solid fuel is huge and only getting bigger, wood burners are getting more beautiful, and people want them more than ever. The sweep is the first line of defence really. A sweep should be able to carry out a complete clean and comprehensive service to multi fuel stoves, wood, open fires. They should be able to identify any issues make sure the appliance is safe to use and give the customer solid advise on this.

Q. If you have any particular sweeping story or anecdote you’d like to share, then write it here.

A. I was sweeping the house of a lady from the rugby club and although I knew they had a lovely house when I arrived it really was stunning. She had a double-sided Chesney stove. One side of the room was just made up of bifold doors and the room side I was working in was completely white. I told her how good the doors looked and she then opened them all. At some point whilst I was sweeping, a beagle dog came in and ran across two white sofas making the most horrendous mess across both. When I finished, I looked round and saw the mess and a very happy looking beagle stretched out on one of the sofas. I went to fetch the lady and explained what had happened, at which point she mentioned they didn’t own a dog. When we got back to the room the beagle was gone and the sofas were wrecked.

The house back onto fields so it was unquestionable but still hard to explain.

Got any more question contact our chimney sweep.