The Back Bay area of Boston is one of the nation's most charming and quaint residential quarters. It came as no surprise then, when one of Back Bay's more respected condominium associations need some chimney repair that they called upon Boston's Best Chimney Sweep.

Twenty-two liners were going to be installed into seven unlined chimneys.

Overlooking the Charles River and not far from the gold dome of Massachusetts' state house, you are invited to join us as we await the arrival of Peter Dickie to show us around. Peter, owner of Boston's Best Chimney Sweep, was lunching with another chimney professional when office manager, Ted, called him from their main office in Newton. "The reporter and cameraman from Chimney Professional Magazine are onsite at the condominium and would like to know when you'll be arriving." "Just finishing lunch now," Peter answered, pushing back a half-eaten sandwich. "Tell them we'll be there shortly," he instructed Ted over the radio.

Upon arriving at the installation site and shaking hands all around, Peter took the reporter and cameraman to the top of this 5 story, 25 unit, condominium (pictured as the building furthest to the right in the first picture on this page).

Riding to the top in the elevator, Peter apologized for not being there to meet us when we arrived. We laughed when he good naturedly told us about his half-finished lunch and were flattered that he wanted to personally show us the roof top scene. Getting off the elevator, we went the last few yards on an interior stairway that led to the roof. Opening the door for us, Peter stood back as we walked out on the roof. Immediately, we were overwhelmed by coiled liners everywhere! Peter explained that they had to use a crane to haul the coils up to the roof earlier that day.

The majority of the liners were to be used for standard fireplaces. All the liners were HomeSaver, distributed by Copperfield Chimney Supply. Most were Rectangleflex, some Dial-A-Flex (for odd sizes), and some were 6" Roundflex.

Peter stressed the importance of making sure the liners were properly sized to fit into the flues on a job of this scale. All seven chimneys had wythe separations between the flues. He also mentioned that some units were experiencing pressure problems. He expects to install several Exhausto fans after the installations were complete. Some of the fireplace smoke chambers will also be parged using Ahrens’ Chamber-Tech 2000.

 

	Peter Dickie, Boston's Best Chimney Sweep

How did Boston’s Best acquire this job? Peter says it started a year and a half ago with an emergency call to un-obstruct an oil furnace flue. Since then, Boston’s Best has submitted several proposals for liner installations. Finally, almost two years later, the condominium association approved their proposal.