The first winter I was in this house, I had a chimney fire. It was not much fun, but the good news is that Doug Heil, of Heil Brothers was the person I called. He was at my home the next day and replaced my damaged chimney, inspected everything including my wood supply and that was the start of a most excellent business-friendship.

We speak once a year when he comes to clean and inspect all.

Since that first visit, it has been a quick clean, “all is well” and then I hear about his family and I share my stuff and it is what life in a smallish town is made of!

We missed last year as I did not use the woodstove the winter that Bear had his surgeries. I had phoned the office last July to say why I didn’t need a clean, but instead of Doug’s wife Sandy, I spoke to an employee so did not get a chance to catch up with either of them.

It had been in the back of my mind to call earlier this year. I closed the damper and doors on the woodstove…early May…thinking not only the bats of past years, but the yellow jackets of the recent year.

Then, last week, on the way to the dump…there is the Heil Bros truck parked by the side of the road. I pulled over. It was Doug. We chatted, etc. and the upshot is that he was here on Friday to clean the Chimney.

The cleaning was fairly non-eventful.

Doug did note that there were a number of Yellow Jackets (DEAD!) in my stove.

We discussed the bane of the yellow jacket thing and I told him about my traps this year. I also told him there was a nest on the house and that I’d had a ladder set for the last week, but kept putting off dispatching the nest.

He said: “Oh, I’ll spray it, I do it all the time”. He sprayed it and did not get stung and the nest fell to the ground.

I was SO relieved! I absolutely HATE dealing with the nests. I told him about my nest spraying “outfit”.

I just wanted to hug the man.

He said that my spray was the best he’d used. It is a foam spray from the local hardware and my personal favorite as it goes a good 20 feet with a significant amount of foam which seems to render anything in its path…DEAD!

I told him where I got it and then gave him one of the 3 cans I had in my arsenal as a THANK YOU!

As we were “settling-up”, Doug said that I should start a fire in the stove. The recent driving rains had soaked the chimney, the stovepipe and the stove. He said a fire would dry things out vs some rust happening.

So…a fire…in late June…with the windows open and me in shorts.

Bear stayed away from the heat.

Tales of the Chimney: Summer 2014.