Holy Smoke has been a family run business in St. Louis for over 30 years. Gary started Holy Smoke when he was 19 years old installing his first chimney covers out of his Ford Escort, He would tie his ladders down with ropes and go knock on doors in our local neighborhoods. Explaining the importance of maintaining and cleaning fireplace’s as well as keeping rain a critters out of the chimney’s flue.  A large number of house fires start when creosote (a carbonaceous chemical) builds up on the interior of your chimney. Even so, some homeowners continue to disregard this significant risk, and don’t take proper measures when it comes to chimney cleaning. When houses were heated by fireplaces only, prior to the Industrial Revolution, chimney sweeps were in demand as 19th century homeowners seemed to realize how important a clean chimney was to avoiding home fires.