The Soot Merchant

Everything was fantastic.

Prompt, professional, and excellent customer service. Thanks!

Very well, clean, fast and they were funny.

Went very well. Very professional. Arrived early. Took care of a problem with stove door by putting extra time and effort into it. I'm pleased and will have them come back for the next cleaning

They called as promised if weather was bad to rescheduled and they did. They showed up on time on the appointed date and time and were very efficient and professional. An A+ for sure.

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It went well. They were prompt, clean and pointed out what needed extra attention. I was pleases with the service

Very friendly and professional. They are honest and did a thorough cleaning of the chimney and repair of my damper.

I made this appointment in early October and was told I would receive a confirming call the day before service. As promised I received a call on the 14th confirming the appointment. As the time came on the 15th for John to arrive I received an updating call to give me a real-time estimate as to when John would arrive. John's first order of business was to vacuum out the stove and inspect the interior of the stove. He then inspected the stove pipe to insure that it was in good shape. He also inspected the spark arrester on the roof and made sure it was clean and in good shape. Then came the actual sweeping. After that John re-cleaned the interior of the stove, cleaned and inspected the door of the stove, cleaned the exterior of the stove and all it's nooks and crannies. John recommended that I might need to have a few bricks replaced by next year and let me know that he could plan for that for me. We made arrangements for me to be placed on his call back list for next year. He did a great job! Thank you so very much for such a great job and such wonderful service!

I scheduled the cleaning by phone with a woman who was professional and courteous. She said she would give me a reminder call the day before the job and that they might need to reschedule if it was raining because the work requires going up on the roof. I received a reminder call the day before. The next day, John and a helper arrived on time ready to work. They introduced themselves and gave me a business card. They swept both flues and cleaned both stoves, doing minor dismantling as necessary. John did a minor repair to some fire bricks in one stove. This is dirty work, but they cleaned up after themselves so there was very little evidence that they had been here. After everything was cleaned up they lit fires in both stoves to test them. They charged $280 to clean two stoves and flues, and $32 for the fire brick repair. This seems a bit high for the work, but I think it is a typical rate for this area.

Called several companies as well as a few Craigslist adds. I set up an appointment with one of the Craigslist workers and they never showed up on the mronign of the scheduled appointment. After this, I left several messages with some of the folks I researched on the web via Yelp, but never received any call backs. (there were no chimney sweep adds in Angie's List for the Santa Cruz area, so i had to go the yelp route).Anyway, the folks at The Soot Merchant were very professional. They scheduled me for an appointment and even called the day prior to remind me. I was able to push the appointment out by an hour due to some scheduling issues on my end, but they were very accommodating. John showed up right on time. Though a bit eccentric in his appearance/demeanor, he knows his stuff and was very good at the job. He ended up doing a small repair (cutting and placing a small fire brick into the clean out trap) which he included as part of the original price quote. Overall I'd highly recommend this company!