Sweeping chimneys in Stockport
Stockport packs more variety of chimney into one borough than anywhere else we cover, and we are close enough — just across from Wythenshawe — to get to most of it without it being a half-day round trip.
The town centre and the older districts are built on hillsides, with terraces stepping down towards the Mersey. Some of those streets are famously steep, and it is not unusual for the stacks to be a serious height above the room they serve — long flue runs that behave differently to a straightforward two-storey chimney and need sweeping accordingly.
Around that sit the Heatons, with substantial Victorian and Edwardian houses carrying several unlined flues to a single stack. Then the interwar and post-war semis through Davenport, Cheadle Heath and Hazel Grove, where fireplaces were closed off in the central heating years and have since been opened back up. And out east through Marple, Romiley and Compstall the properties get older and more exposed, with more woodburners doing real heating work.