Seven thousand people for fifty weeks a year, and a housing stock that earns its living in the other two.
Sturgis sits in the northern foothills and for most of the year behaves like any small Black Hills town: older housing, wood as real heat rather than decoration, and a heating season that starts early and finishes late.
Then there is August. A substantial share of the housing here operates as short-term rental for part of the year, and that changes what we find in a chimney more than any climate factor does. A stove operated by a different person every few nights - built too big, damper left shut, whatever wood was nearest the door - produces heavier and dirtier deposit than the same stove run by an owner who knows it. We ask whether a property is let before recommending an interval, because the honest answer differs.
Unlined stacks under later inserts. The oldest housing here predates the practice of lining a chimney, and plenty of those stacks later had a wood insert fitted into the fireplace opening without anyone lining the flue. From the room you cannot tell. There is more on the relining page for Sturgis, including the tell - a campfire smell on damp days without a fire lit.
Additions that broke the chimney's situation. Foothills houses here have been extended more than anywhere else we work, and an addition with a higher roof ten feet from the stack puts the termination into a pressure zone it was never in. That is the local draft story, and the giveaway is that it spills on windy days and behaves perfectly on still ones - the exact opposite of Rapid City.
Rally week is not workable for anyone, and access in and out of town is impossible regardless. The two windows that work are late spring, once the season is over, and late September into October - after the summer lets and before the heating season. The second is the one that matters, and those weeks fill first.
We run Sturgis on set route days weekly, which is how it stays at the same price as Rapid City with no travel surcharge. Booking a sweep and anything else on one visit is the efficient way to handle it.
That answer changes the interval more than anything else you can tell us.
Rather talk it through
Say whether the property is let and whether anything has been built near the chimney.