Dave Sudworth from Mr Soot Training Center near Manchester, England came to Denver Colorado in June 2024 to model the proper use of this ground breaking new chimney integrity testing device. The format was at the Midtown Chimney Sweeps 2024 Annual Convention in June 2024 with over 25 select chimney sweep professionals invited.
History
The founder of a nationwide chimney sweeping franchise, Byron Schramm, traveled to Germany, Austria, Italy, France and England in 2023 and 2024 on a 7 month search for the silver bullet to properly inspect chimneys. He met with 6th generation chimney sweeps in the heart of Europe, and found the storied history of chimney sweeping dating back to the first licensed chimney sweep in Vienna, Austria: Hans von Mailnath. Most astounding was the date of the chimney sweep’s license, 1512. If you want to know how to properly inspect a chimney, the heart of Europe is the place to go, and German engineering is the thing to trust.
In 2022 Byron began seeking a better method, an objective technique, for checking the integrity of testing chimneys. A handy person by nature and training, Byron set out to create a pressure testing method for chimneys in his garage. After months of work, and little to show for it, an internet search landed him on a website indicating that this technique of testing chimneys had already been invented, and was being daily used in over 5 European countries! Excited, Byron launched into a multi-year journey to bring this technique to the USA for himself and his team to better inspect chimneys for their customers.
Junk or Genius? US Chimney Sweep leaders tested it in 1997 with this opinion: Not Good
Around 1997 a handful of US chimney sweep professionals from the National Chimney Sweep Guild and Chimney Safety Institute of America were introduced to the concept of chimney integrity testing by attending the annual ESCHFOE (European Chimney Sweep Federation) in Europe. Upon a verbal interview of two of these attendees, Byron Schramm heard their first-hand report. These leaders did not like the device because it gave a “pass” to nearly every chimney they attempted to test here in the USA. They abandoned the European technique and chimney integrity testing has been silent ever since in the USA.
But Byron quietly questioned their methods and qualifications to make that decision on behalf of all chimney sweeps in the USA. A biology major in college, Byron had been trained in the proper use of the scientific method, and something about this story was not adding up correctly in his head.
Upon further questioning of their testing methods it was discovered that these individuals did not go to the manufacturers headquarters and study the machine in detail, but rather deployed it directly themselves on test chimneys built for this purpose in a US warehouse. After numerous dissatisfactory results, the efforts were abandoned in favor of a camera-on-a-stick method of visually inspecting Americas chimneys. Ever since then, American chimney sweeps have precisely one method, and only one method, of inspecting a chimney- a camera on a stick- and no method of testing a chimney.
The image above is of me in London. English sweeps use this device to test open style masonry chimneys to find leaks unseen with cameras.
The above photo is of a German assemblyman looking over the calibration process which takes approximately 10 minutes on a new device. This employee has assembled over 1,000 of these devices personally over the years he has worked at the factory at Wohler. He assembled one for us in about 30 minutes.
Will the Wohler DP 600 device testing work in the USA?
Byron has hopes that his team will reach a different conclusion, and has some preliminary evidence to back it up.
First, Byron’s approach is different than his predecessors of 27 years earlier- he went straight to the German headquarters of Bad Wunnenberg, Germany, and spent 2 days with the inventor Elmar, and other employees learning just how the device is intended to be used and deployed.
Secondly, he spent time in the field with a well-respected German chimney sweep and professor in Stuttgart, Germany sweeping chimneys and investigating the tool.
Thirdly, Byron traveled to England where he was trained on the device in both London and Wigan, England by two separate HETAS approved trainers.
Fourthly, Byron went to Belgium and witnessed the device used in the pressure testing of newly-fabricated wood burning appliances at a large wood stove manufacturing facility.
Fifthly, now back home in Denver, Colorado, Byron is putting the device to work on American clay flue tiles and in situ masonry fireplaces and UL Listed stainless steel chimneys and UL Listed stainless steel chimney liners.
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