Do you own a house? Congratulations! Although with an ownership many responsibilities are bound including taking care of the property properly. Everyone will verify this responsibility never ends. One of those is a care of roof including chimney system. In this area among the owners there are many “guaranteed” truths but no one precisely knows what the obligations are.
Correct functioning of the chimney is very important for every property. Inadequately cleaned chimney can cause tragedies that can end up with vast damage on the property or even death. It can cause fire or the tenants can be poisoned by toxic fouling.
Therefore it is for the sake of everyone that properly cleaned chimney is a matter of course. Very often there is a myth spreading that care of chimney is a obligation given by state. It is really only a myth. Actually this obligation does not exist. Care of chimney is in the interest of every owner of property.
State does not impose how often a chimney sweeper should be invited. State only issues certain recommendations. That can be found in government regulation č. 91/2010 Sb. about fire safety conditions for chimney, flue way and fuel consumption gauge operation. According to this, chimney sweeper should be invited according to the output of burners, minimally once a year respectively before winter heating season.
Sweeper checks the chimney, cleans it and advises of eventual malfunctions that should be removed. Prices for these services are not expensive, usually around couple hundreds of CZK. If there are more chimneys, then price for one chimney would be even lower.
As was mentioned above, state does not order anything to the owners. Therefore the fact that no control would be run is not punished. Different situation would be when some kind of disaster occurs, for example fire.
If it would be proven that fire was set from a chimney inappropriately revised, the owner could receive fine of 25 000 CZK. In case the owner had invited the sweeper and the malfunction of chimney had been overlooked, then the one responsible would be the sweeper.