Roc Chimney Sweep is an independent directory covering chimney sweep companies in Greater Rochester, NY. I'm Connor Meador — a Rochester-based indie web developer who builds content-led directories for local service markets where the existing top search results are visibly low-effort: broken WordPress themes, no pricing transparency, and zero educational depth. Chimney service turned out to be a particularly bad market for that — Monroe County has somewhere around 8–15 active operators and only 2–3 with visible CSIA certification, but the Yelp and Google Maps results for "chimney sweep Rochester" don't distinguish between them at all. A company with one certified technician and a company running uninsured side work show up looking identical.
The directory aggregates public data from Google Business Profiles, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and OpenStreetMap. I do not contact businesses for payment, accept sponsored listings, or allow operators to influence their ranking. Every business appears on the same algorithmic footing. If you're a business owner and want to correct factual errors about your listing, email connormeador@gmail.com — I respond within 48 hours and remove listings on request.
How the Roc Score works
Each business is scored on a 0–100 scale called the Roc Score. The formula uses seven factors with fixed weights: Google star rating (30%), Google review count (20%), Yelp star rating (10%), Yelp review count (10%), BBB accreditation status (5%), review recency (10%), and service area overlap with Monroe County suburbs (15%). Review counts are log-normalized — a business with 200 reviews doesn't score 40× higher than one with 5. The goal is to distinguish genuinely established operators from new entrants without penalizing newer companies unfairly.
One thing the Roc Score deliberately does notdo: verify CSIA certification. That credential isn't published anywhere I can pull programmatically, so it never factors into the ranking math — a business can score well on reviews and coverage without being certified, and a certified shop with a thin review history can score lower than an uncertified one with more volume. Certification is the one thing worth confirming yourself, directly with the operator, before you book — it's not something a directory algorithm can shortcut for you. The score is recalculated on a rolling basis as public review data changes; I do not manually adjust scores, and there is no way to buy a higher one. The methodology page walks through the full formula with a worked example, including how businesses with no Yelp presence are handled.
Why this directory exists
Rochester homeowners searching for chimney sweeps encounter two failure modes: Yelp and Google Maps results that are either pay-to-play or saturated with businesses that haven't been active in years. The NFPA recommends annual chimney inspections — that's a serious safety recommendation, not a marketing talking point, and Monroe County's roughly 130 annual freeze-thaw cycles off Lake Ontario make deferred maintenance here worse than in milder climates. Hiring the wrong sweep (no insurance, no CSIA training, improper equipment) can leave your liner cracked or your firebox dirty enough to be a fire hazard, and it can also leave you without the written, insurance-grade documentation an inspection is supposed to produce. This directory makes it easier to find operators who meet that standard, and the service pages explain what a real inspection or repair visit should actually include so you know what to ask for.
Editorial standards
- Public data only — no review text republished without attribution and source link.
- No fabricated CSIA certification, insurance status, invented founding dates, or fake testimonials — see the methodology page's data-source caveat on what we can and can't verify.
- Every claim about a business links to a verifiable source (Google Maps, Yelp, BBB, their website).
- Listings removed within 7 days of a business owner's request.
- No AI-generated "before/after" chimney or fireplace photos attributed to a specific business — a fabricated repair photo in this trade isn't a cosmetic shortcut, it's a fire-safety credibility problem.