Almost everyone has a grainy pseudo-color photograph of faded tees and feathered bangs that begs the caption, “Once upon a time.” Our story is no different.  It begins with a boy napping in a bathtub of a half-finished house while his father builds the chimney.  And a teenager on a roof with his dad looking at a chimney cap and handing him tools.  And a young man with his uncle, selling firewood, fireplace, and installing wood-burning stoves.  But maybe it started before all that on a farm in California where two people, now great-grandparents, grew alfalfa, passing on their entrepreneurial DNA to their children’s children’s children.  Not to mention all of their forebears who had the independent fierceness to endure being “fresh off the boat.”

Midtown Chimney Sweeps, established in 1979, is a tapestry of those lives that have gone before.  Byron Schramm, 5^th generation entrepreneur, grew Midtown Chimney Sweeps Franchise on the shoulders of his uncle and father’s businesses.  The hearth industry is one which they all know well, having installed thousands of wood, pellet and gas hearth appliances.

A clean-freak and growth-oriented person, Byron set out to grow the family business of chimney sweeping and fireplace installation in a sunshine state.  Building a cold-weather type business in California was not a strategic decision, but one that following the simple belief that one should bloom where planted.  To be successful in that high desert climate, the business model was forced to be lean, clean, with no wasted motions. Blooming in the California desert requires quite a bit of creativity, a characteristic that still drives our company today.

Spurred on by family members at annual family Christmas gathers, the Midtown Chimney Franchise opened a proof of concept prototype franchise in the Evergreen, Colorado market—a beautiful area located in the foothills of the majestic and cold Colorado Rocky Mountains. A perfect place for the flagship franchise of a national Chimney Sweeping Company.