How Wexford Chimney Sweep Was Born in Cicero
We started this company in 2013, but the decision happened on a cold February afternoon in Cicero when a homeowner near 22nd Street showed us something that didn’t sit right. She’d paid another outfit to sweep her chimney and install what they called a “new liner.” What she actually had was a thin, unbranded pipe that wasn’t even connected to the flue above the smoke shelf. The creosote behind it was thick enough to scrape off in curls. She’d been told everything was safe. It wasn’t.
That day stuck with us because it wasn’t a rare thing. We kept hearing the same stories across Cicero and Berwyn: homeowners who’d paid good money for work they couldn’t see, couldn’t verify, and couldn’t trust. The industry we’d been working in had a transparency problem. We promised ourselves that when we put our name on a truck, every recommendation would come with proof the customer could see with their own eyes. A camera that showed the flue from top to bottom. A report that said plainly what needed doing and what could wait. That promise became the company.
Our Founder’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
The first time we climbed onto a roof to look down a flue, the smell hit before anything else. Creosote has a particular scent, something between charred wood and old grease, and it stays on your clothes even after a shower. We’d spent years in the trades before that, doing general home repairs and learning how houses actually work. Chimneys kept showing up as the thing nobody wanted to deal with. They were dirty, awkward, sometimes dangerous, and easy to ignore until a problem got expensive.
What pulled us in was how honest the work is. A chimney doesn’t care about your sales pitch or the logo on your shirt. It either drafts or it doesn’t. It’s either safe to burn in or it’s not. Once you learn to read the signs inside a flue, the creosote glazing, the spalling brick, the rust rings on a damper, the work becomes a kind of detective story. Every fireplace tells you what’s been happening in the house.
The personal part is this: we know what it’s like to sit by a fire and wonder if everything above the mantel is actually okay. That doubt is worse than any repair bill. When we finish a job and a family lights that first fire of the season, and the smoke goes up like it’s supposed to, that’s the moment that keeps us in this trade. If we weren’t doing this, we’d probably still be fixing houses somewhere in the Chicago area, but we’d be missing the part that matters: the relief on someone’s face when they know their home is finally, verifiably safe.
More than ten years in, we still climb every roof ourselves. We still run the camera. We still feel that small satisfaction when the brush scrapes through the last of the season’s buildup and the flue sounds clean. You learn what clean sounds like after a while. It’s a hollow, even drag, and it means the job’s been done right.
Meet Our Team – The Person Behind Every Job
The person behind Wexford Chimney Sweep is the owner and founder, the one who made that promise back in Cicero in 2013 and has kept it on every job since. Our background is in the building trades, and our chimney training came through years of hands-on work, learning from experienced tradespeople who cared about doing things correctly. We’ve worked on everything from century-old masonry chimneys in Oak Park to prefabricated fireplace systems installed in Stickney homes barely a decade old.
What separates us from a corporate franchise technician is simple: our name is on the work, and we’re the one standing in your living room explaining what we found. There’s no script, no upsell quota, no pressure to sell a liner someone doesn’t need. When we’re not working, we’re usually tinkering with something mechanical or volunteering time at local community cleanups around Cicero. It’s not a hobby that photographs well, but it keeps us grounded in the place we serve.
If you hire Wexford Chimney Sweep, you get our full attention, our honest assessment, and our personal commitment that the job will be done right or we’ll make it right.
Our Promise to Cicero Homeowners
Honest pricing comes first. You’ll get a flat, written estimate before any work begins, and the price we quote is the price you pay. No surprise add-ons discovered halfway through the job. We learned early that trust is built before the brush ever goes up the flue.
We use quality parts from manufacturers like Olympia Chimney and Copperfield because we’ve seen what happens when cheap components fail. A flue liner or cap isn’t a place to cut corners. When we install something, we want it to outlast the mortgage.
Standing behind every job means we answer the phone after the invoice is paid. If something isn’t right, we come back. It’s that simple, and it’s always been that simple.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed – Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires for chimney and fireplace work.
- Insured & bonded – We carry the coverage a homeowner should expect from anyone working inside their home.
- Over a decade of local experience – We’ve been serving Cicero and the surrounding area since 2013, and we’ve seen just about every flue condition this region can produce.
- Strong local reputation – Our business has grown through word of mouth and repeat customers across Cicero, Berwyn, and neighboring communities.
A license means the person on your roof has met the state’s minimum standard for training and competence. Insurance protects you if something unexpected happens. Local experience means we know how Chicago winters, heavy burning seasons, and older housing stock affect the chimneys in this specific area, and we’ve seen the patterns repeat for over a decade.
Rooted in Cicero
Cicero is where this company started, and it’s the community we come home to at the end of every workday. We know the blocks around Austin Boulevard and the stretch of Cermak Road. We’ve swept chimneys in Berwyn bungalows and Oak Park four-squares, in Stickney and Brighton Park, North Riverside and Forest Park. When you see our truck on the street, that’s a neighbor, not a stranger passing through. This is where we live and where we plan to keep working for a long time.
Written by the owner of Wexford Chimney Sweep, serving Cicero since 2013.