Hi everyone… what @mcmayhem has on her contract is very unusual as almost no insurance company asks for that every year BUT, as @PeterJ and others have pointed out, in case of claim they would all check on the history you’ve had cleaning the chimney. The standard rule is that, any fire related to bad maintenance won’t be covered or not in full.
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A slight side thought.
I keep my important documents (including chimney sweep evidence) ‘in the cloud’ as well as physically in the house. In the event of a disaster (it could be a total house loss if very unlucky), I can still access them.
Many people are given little bits of cloud storage and sometimes don’t make use of them.
It’s a bit of a grim thought but be prepared - something to think about.
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How is this translated to DIY chimney sweeping though Fabien? If a flue is in excellent, clean condition (at least twice yearly - more if needed) by the owner how does that stand?
good evening Stella,
Time for a cautionary tale. We rented a house from agents which had central heating and a log fire for the winter. From the time we rented the house until the Etat de Lieu. we had not used the log fire at all.
We were invoiced for the ramonage in any case and because we had been rather slack on the incoming Etat de Lieu, we were also invoiced for damaged tiles (which were already damaged when we took on the house)
Oh my… what rotten luck…
Definitely a “cautionary tale” worth noting… 
(those Agents don’t sound very professional… )
I cannot tell… that’s the assessor’s job. In case of a claim, the assessor or expert should assess the situation and have to determine what caused the claim in the first place. If he/she thinks that’s because of bad maintenance or poorly installed chimney then you’re up for a hard time indeed. It’s actually the same process if the chimney is pro installed and/or maintained but the difference then is that the insurance company knows automatically that you can’t be at fault (because you hired pro in good faith which shifts the responsibility away from you) so the insurance company would compensate you almost automatically in that case because the claim would be undoubtedly “due to a random event” in your case.
Might be worth mentioning that our experience of the ‘experts’ in France is very different from the ‘loss adjusters’ in the UK. The latter definitely work for the insurance company, and seem to see their job as minimising payouts, but here is France the experts seem more genuinely independent.
We’ve had 2 claims here in France - fire and flood! (neither affecting our house actually, but in our gites). I recall 2 aspects in particular:
- a water-damaged coffee-table, for which we costed an ‘Ikea’ replacement - but the expert looked at the damaged one and said it was worth much more than the replacement we had costed (which was true, although we didn’t like it as much) - and he put down a higher value
- a bit of redecoration, where I said we didn’t need any payment because I had the left-over paint and would do it myself - but the expert (not the same as the first) insisted on claiming a realistic cost.
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Today my chimney sweeper came and they did really a thorough and good job. If someone is looking for a ramoneur near Pont L’eveque here are the details: Patrick Samson 14430 Annebault,
0231642131, patricksamson14@orange.fr.
It is a husband and wife team! They were done in 25 minutes and accepted a cheque and I received an invoice (something rare compared to other chimney sweeper). I was also able to schedule an appointment for next June!