Chimney and Duct Cleaning Editing and Proofreading Services

A sweep finishes the job, hands over a certificate, and mentions that the liner has a gap near the top and the customer might want to get that looked at. The certificate says the chimney was swept. Eleven months later there is a carbon monoxide incident, and the only record of the most important thing said that afternoon is in nobody's memory and on no piece of paper.

We edit what chimney sweeps and duct cleaning businesses produce — sweep certificates and their defect sections, do-not-use advice and its communication, inspection findings and their categorisation, carbon monoxide and ventilation guidance for customers, appliance and flue condition reporting, service frequency recommendations by fuel type, quotations for remedial work and camera surveys, terms of business and access requirements, landlord and letting agent reporting, and customer guidance on safe use of solid fuel appliances. Our editors work on the defect that has to outlive the visit.

The certificate's defect section is the difference between a sweep and a record, and its failure is a tick beside the word swept. A certificate that records the work and not the condition has documented the least important thing that happened. We write these so any defect is recorded in writing with its location, what it is and what it means for use — since a gap in a liner, a cracked register plate and a bird's nest above the smoke shelf all have different consequences and none of them is conveyed by a general note; so the position on continued use is stated in one of three ways only: safe to use, safe to use with a specified condition, or do not use until repaired, given that a customer told to "get it looked at" will use the appliance tonight; so where the advice is do not use, the reason is stated in terms of what could happen and how quickly, because this is what makes somebody act rather than intend to act; so any carbon monoxide risk is separated from a fire risk, as customers understand fire and consistently underestimate the other; so the presence and test status of an alarm is recorded, with the position it should be in; so the frequency for this appliance and this fuel is stated rather than a general recommendation, since a wood-burner used daily needs a different interval from an open fire used at Christmas; and so anything the sweep could not access or see is written down. Certificates written this way protect the household and the sweep.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including certificates, reports and customer records. We are editors rather than sweeps, engineers or safety advisers, and we offer no view on flue condition, appliance safety or fitness for use. What we can do is make the defect outlive the conversation.