Chimney Sweep Killara

Killara is the most heritage-dense suburb we work in. Independent heritage advice to Ku-ring-gai Council in 2024 found that 83 per cent of properties within 400 metres of Killara station are heritage listed. Eight conservation areas cover the suburb, among them the Greengate Estate, Springdale, Lynwood Avenue, Marian Street, the Crown Blocks, Stanhope Road and the Oliver Grant. Council’s Development Control Plan requires fireplaces and chimneys in these areas to be retained, so a Killara flue is something you maintain rather than remove.

The stock is Federation through inter-war, and it varies street by street. Federation Queen Anne, Arts and Crafts and Californian Bungalow, alongside inter-war Old English, Spanish Mission and Mediterranean, on grants and estates sold from the 1890s through the 1920s — Mackenzie Estate 1907, Lightcliff and Slade Avenues 1916, Belhelvie Estate 1919. Chimney design changes with each of those styles, and so does the way the flue is built behind it.

Killara’s heritage record names chimneys directly. Woodlands on Werona Avenue, on the State Heritage Register and dating from 1884, retains its original fireplaces. Eastment House on Springdale Road, designed by Ken Woolley between 1970 and 1977, was inventoried for a sculptural double fireplace that rises through three levels of the house and emerges through the roof as twin concrete-capped chimneys. Killara flues are rarely standard, which is why we put a camera up before we commit to a method.

Killara has the least tree cover of the five, and it still blocks flues. 36.7 per cent canopy on Council’s 2020 aerial survey, the lowest of the suburbs we cover. The difference here is the source: mature private garden trees and street canopy rather than adjoining bushland. Debris arrives later in autumn than it does in Wahroonga or St Ives, which is why a March sweep in Killara sometimes needs a second look in May.

Four in ten Killara homes are apartments. 42.6 per cent were flats or apartments at the 2021 Census, the second highest of the five. If you are in a strata building with a shared flue, or a fireplace that was closed off during a renovation, talk to us before you light it. We inspect first and tell you honestly whether it is safe to use.