Enhanced Chimney Sweep PPE Covid 19

Changes to working practice due to Enhanced Chimney Sweep PPE and Covid 19

No cake for us – for now

At Best Chimney Clean we are really looking forward to getting back to work and seeing our wonderful customers again. Things will have to be different now as we all adjust to living with Coronavirus. New working practices mean the little rituals like a cup of tea or coffee (and cake!), a catch up on how the garden is doing or how our respective children have fared in the last year will have to be put aside for now. On the plus side chimney sweeps waistlines might shrink a bit, so there is that.

All joking aside there is a very serious reasons for this, the emergence of Coronavirus Covid 19 as a real and present threat. We are a well established chimney sweep business serving Exeter and the surrounding area and appreciate we have a significant duty of care to our customers and ourselves to take measures to minimise any risks of contamination and infection. Our customer feedback has always included favourable comments on our general levels of cleanliness in working practices and the great efforts taken to minimise any disturbance where we are working. The clue is in the business name we are Best Chimney Clean after all!

We have reviewed our working practices in line with Government and industry advice and looked at our equipment to see where improvements can be made. This has included additional training in Infection Awareness, Prevention and Control which in turn has informed some of the changes we are implementing in our working practices. Measures include:

• Checking before arrival and confirming on arrival if anyone in the household is displaying symptoms associated with Covid 19 or self isolating
• We will postpone if necessary and if, at anytime, we display symptoms we will self isolate in line with advice
• Requesting the householder remains in a different room to where works are being carried out, ensure good ventilation and doors are propped open where possible
• Hand hygiene, washing of hands and use of hand sanitiser before, during and after work is completed
• Fresh gloves for each job
• YULEYS® reusable overshoes, these are great! Easy no hands on and off
• Disposable, environmentally friendly, under-sheet in conjunction with clean runners and dust sheets
• Disinfection of equipment and areas that are in contact (eg door handles, stove doors)

Personal Protective Equipment PPE

Soot is carcinogenic, basically the product that we deal with occupationally has the capacity to cause serious illness and even death. Understanding this means we have always taken strong precautions to minimise our exposure to it. Work PPE has always included wearing a mask, ear defenders and gloves as a minimum – have a look at our marketing cartoons, the sweep is always masked! We have always used protective equipment and still have a working condition (though now retired), ancient 3M Airstream helmet.

Over the last few years we have enhanced our protective kit to upgrade our respiratory hygiene equipment. Our preferred system is the Sundstrom SR500 which is used with either the SR540 face shield if we want to go full Buzz Lightyear or SR200 full face mask which gives more of a Top Gun look. This type of system is known as a powered air-purifying respirator or PAPR and offers a very high level of user protection. You can learn more by watching the film below.