This Might Seem A Silly Question

The method described by Orchard is the one reccomended to us. It seems quite normal for our elderly neighbours to clinb up onto their roofs to drop a line down with a weight attached, and then drag the bunch of olive netting down and up to clean the chimney.  I dont think it works particularly well because olive wood creates a large amount of tar (hence those funny little cans dangling from chimney elbows on external metal chimneys), and our neighbours often have chimney fires which they allow to burn out but keep an eye on just in case the roof timbers should catch alight, the ends of which are already very blackened.

Our wood burner is Sweedish and incorpoates a heat exchanger above the fire box for central heating, although I have not bothered to connect it to anything it is a source of a problem because the void above is almost inaccessible but must be cleaned every couple of weeks of use otherwise the draght mechanism does'nt work and the house fills with smoke in no time. Otherwise it is incredibly efficient.

Bob.