John Meredith and his son, Tom, got an inside-out and outside-in look at the West Wing last week.
Meredith is CEO of SaverSystems, a Richmond manufacturer of chimney repair and restoration products. Tom is a certified chimney sweep and company sales manager.
SaverSystems’ products are well enough known throughout the country in the industry that White House chimney expert Jerry Neal called the Merediths to Washington, D.C., to do a cleaning, inspection and consultation on seven White House chimneys.
“It was an amazing experience, certainly interesting and eye-opening,” said John Meredith, who started the company in 1987 in a rented and retro-fitted chicken coop on Niewoehner Road.
The Merediths spent the day Aug. 9 working at the White House.
“I felt like I was in a museum,” said Tom Meredith, who has been with the company for 11 years. “There were priceless portraits everywhere, and I got such a great sense of the history there.”
The Merediths were escorted everywhere by a Secret Service officer and the Oval Office’s HVAC engineer. They cleaned and inspected the chimneys in the Oval Office and the offices of the vice president, chief of staff and press secretary as well as those in the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room and the president’s study.
“It was a great experience,” Tom Meredith said. “The vice president must burn fires in his chimney every day judging by how dirty it was.”