A Brief History of a Chimney Sweep 207-323-7755

My Great Grandpa was the Reverend William Vaughan who’d left the pulpit at Trinity Chapel in NYC to build the Old Stone Church on the East Side of Belfast. Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, and the Tiffany boys were parishioners in New York and raised funds for the Stone Church. Where the Tiffany windows are today is a mystery.

Well Great Grandpa for “health reasons” moved to Maine and his claim to fame was that he’d go out and fell,  cut, split, and stack 200 cords of firewood every winter, much for those unable to do so. His “health reasons” seem to have been one lovely indigenous descendant of Pocahontas. :)

This would explain my love of masonry, history, wood heat, the Lord, and yes, Pocahontas types.

His son, my Grandpa, was Malcomb “Mac” Vaughan, the head of public works in Belfast for countless years.

I’d cleaned family chimneys my entire life, but my first real commercial chimneys were the biggest in the world; the smokestacks of coal burning power plants back in 1977 when I worked for Halliburton. I’m ashamed to say I did their dirty work; fracking oil wells for Dick Cheney at 22.

About 1993 I had a negative experience with a chimney sweep in Maine so armed with a brochure from the state,  I cleaned my own chimney. Then my aunt’s chimney.. then her neighbor's.. and some even started paying me and “Cheap Sweeps” was born.

Probably the most unusual chimney I’ve done was a 90’ climb to the top of the mast of the sailing ship Corwin Cramer out of Woods Hole. The chimney WAS the mast.

I’ve made every mistake a man can make. That’s how you learn. I left a customer’s basement lights on for a year! I paid the guy with a note of apology. I once opened a damper and 100 years of coal soot rolled through a beautiful home. We cleaned up the mess. As a result we also do “deep cleaning of attics, cellars and barns."

Later, we took over our competitors, added employees, and  co-founded the Maine Chimney Guild, hosted annual meetings of the National Guild, and were very active members of our industry. I wish I could say that I am the very best sweep in Maine, but I know a few very good colleagues. Funny thing, the best were old hippies,  back to the landers out of The Mother Earth News.

Then tragedy struck:

On July 29^th 2009 our home and shop were destroyed by an electrical fire. Worst, we lost all of our customer lists and are just now getting back to work, a one man/dog operation, and really look forward to reconnecting with our customers, our friends.

Thank you so much. We’d appreciate a call and always try to answer!  Bradley Williams.  Give us a call 207-323-8008 (office) or the alternative number, 207-323-7755