Can you clean your own chimney?

What the regulations say

The fire safety regulations require a certificate to be drawn up for every flue cleaning, but they provide for one exception. A certificate need not be drawn up if the cleaning of a solid-fuel heating device, its flue and the natural ventilation duct of a single-dwelling property is done by the person responsible for that property, usually the owner.

In the regulations a single-dwelling property is a detached house: a family house, a farmhouse, a summer house, a garden house. It is also a dwelling in a semi-detached or terraced house, if it has its own roof and its own entrance. The State Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD) explains it the same way: if private house owners know how to clean a chimney, they can do it themselves.

When cleaning it yourself is not enough

Even if you clean the flue yourself, a technical condition inspection is needed once every five years, and its certificate is signed by a chimney sweep or another specialist named in the regulations. What it involves: chimney sweep's condition report.

Insurance: how you will prove the cleaning

The exception in the regulations frees you from the certificate, but the insurer's requirements remain. The terms of BTA, Balta and ERGO require the flue to be cleaned at least once a year, and after a loss the insurer may ask you to prove it. The Latvian Insurers Association advises keeping certificates and invoices. If you clean it yourself, write down the date and keep photos, but bear in mind that this is not the same as a certificate. More: chimney report for insurance.

What you must never do

• Burning out soot with a hot fire, paper or flammable liquid. The regulations forbid it, because burning soot overheats the flue and causes cracks.
• Using a flue in which you see a crack or bricks that have fallen out. Using a damaged flue is forbidden.
• Lighting the fire with flammable liquids not intended for it.
• Burning household waste in the stove: VUGD points out that it speeds up the build-up of soot.

Safety: what to consider before you clean it yourself

The biggest risk is not the soot but the roof. Climbing on a steep or slippery roof without safety equipment is dangerous, so we recommend leaving work on the roof to a specialist. Many flues can be cleaned from below through the cleaning door or the firebox, and then there is no need to go up on the roof: chimney cleaning from below.

• Clean only a flue and a stove that have cooled down.
• Collect the soot and ash in a non-combustible container and keep it outside the house: there may be smouldering pieces in it.
• Soot dust is fine and dirty, so wear a dust mask and cover the room.
• Soot-removal products that you put in the firebox can make the job easier, but they do not replace mechanical cleaning with a brush.

When it is better to call a chimney sweep

• There is a hard, glossy tar layer in the flue that a brush does not remove: chimney tar removal.
• The stove smokes or there is no draught even after cleaning.
• Soot has burned in the flue: chimney check after a soot fire.
• You need a certificate for the insurer, a buyer or the building authority (būvvalde).
• The five-year technical condition inspection is due.

If you usually clean the flue yourself, it can be useful to order cleaning together with an inspection once a year or once every five years, so that you have a certificate and a specialist looks at what you cannot see yourself. How the work is done: chimney sweep for a house.

What changes from 2027

From 01.01.2027 the new fire safety law requires flue cleaning as a service to be provided by a person with the appropriate professional training and under a contract. This applies to service providers, not to an owner cleaning their own house. Whether the owner's exception will remain in the new regulations that will replace Cabinet Regulation No. 238, we will check as soon as they are adopted.