On a house this new the first visit is not about creosote at all.
Box Elder has gone from 11,946 people at the 2020 census to roughly 14,857 now - about a quarter larger in six years, and the fastest growth of any South Dakota town over ten thousand. Ellsworth Air Force Base is being rebuilt around the B-21 programme with something near two billion dollars of infrastructure work, and housing has followed.
That means an unusual share of the fireplaces here have never had a fire in them, or have had two winters at most. Selling those owners an annual sweep would be dishonest, so we do not.
What we find on first visits to new construction, in order of frequency, has nothing to do with soot.
Construction debris in the chase. The framed cavity around a factory-built chimney is open for weeks during the build, and offcuts, insulation scraps and packaging routinely end up sitting on the firestop. It is combustible material lying against a metal flue. We pull it out and it is the single most valuable thing about a first-year inspection.
Missing or wrongly fitted firestops and storm collars. Sequencing on a fast build is imperfect and these get skipped or refitted badly by a later trade.
The cap left off, or the shipping plug left in. Rare, and spectacular when it happens on first lighting.
So the honest first visit here is an inspection rather than a sweep, at $140 to $190, and if the flue is clean we will say so and leave. After that, come back when you have burned enough to justify it - which on a decorative fireplace can be four or five years.
Tell us the year and whether the fireplace has been used. That decides whether you need us at all.
Rather talk it through
If the flue is clean we say so and there is nothing to sell. That is the point of the visit.