Bob's Chimney Boston

Bob's Chimney runs out of Centre St in Jamaica Plain and covers the full chimney trade: sweeping, inspections, liners, caps, crowns, repointing, flashing, rebuilds, plus fireplace work and dryer vent cleaning. Its Google page sits at 4.9 across 286 ratings — and its Better Business Bureau grade is a C-. Those two numbers are the whole story of this profile. The day-to-day work reads well and reads consistently. Technicians are named constantly — Shawn, David, Jacob, Kevin, John, Joseph, Sean, Larry — and the same details recur: on time, photographs taken before and after, options and a quote given before any work starts. A July 2026 reviewer described David explaining the situation with pictures and offering multiple options ahead of a quote. An August 2026 reviewer had a full insurance-renewal inspection completed and the official report emailed before the technician left the driveway. Another that month had David lay drop cloths and run an industrial vacuum so that no soot reached a white living-room rug. A February 2026 condo owner facing an HOA hearing over a missed inspection was fitted in on short notice. Price is where it goes wrong, and it goes wrong sharply. A March 2026 one-star reviewer said they called a company advertising chimney cleaning from $100 in their town, Bob's Chimney arrived from an hour away, and the bill was $800 to sweep a boiler chimney. A January 2026 two-star reviewer paid over $2,000 for a chimney sweep and said the basement was left a mess for want of cleaning supplies. Those are two separate customers describing the same thing: a bill far above what they expected for routine cleaning. Two reviews also name "Cityline" — one as the company they thought they were calling, one as the name attached to poor scheduling and confusion over whether both flues had been cleaned in a December 2025 chimney rebuild. Anyone booking should be clear about which company is arriving and what the price covers. The Better Business Bureau records one complaint on file and lists a Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation registration, 219314, with an expiry of 4/14/2028 — that is the BBB's listing, not a registry confirmation, so ask to see it. One more thing to weigh: the entire written record runs from 2025 to 2026. 170 reviews in about a year is a lot of reviews for a company with no history behind them, and there is no multi-year track record to check the recent praise against. For sweeping, inspections and camera-documented repairs, the technicians clearly do good work. Get a firm, itemised price in writing before anyone climbs the roof — that is the one thing customers here consistently wish they had done.