Arched gas fireplace insert burning in a red brick fireplace with a slate hearth

A Fireplace Store and More · Downers Grove, IL

Naperville, Illinois41.77° N, 88.15° Wabout 17 minutes from the showroom

Chimney cleaning and fireplace service in Naperville, IL.

Chimney sweep and inspection in Naperville happen on one visit; we repair what we find and take care of gas fireplace repair and service while we are there: caps, chase covers, crowns, dampers, liners, firebox panels, pilots and thermopiles. You get a written report with photos. Our calendar fills once the cold nights arrive, so book early in the fall.

Call (630) 241‑1919Request an estimate

A gas insert in a red brick fireplace. Even with gas, the chimney above it needs a yearly look, and in Naperville that chimney is more often a framed chase than brick.

  • Drive time17min75th Street west to the Municipal Center on Eagle Street; the far side a few minutes more
  • Years of service30+sweeping, repairing and servicing from the same address on 75th Street
  • Inspection levels3Level 1, 2 or 3 under NFPA 211, chosen for your chimney
  • Call-back1daywe answer a service request with a time within one business day
About A Fireplace Store and More

A Fireplace Store and More cleans, inspects and repairs chimneys in Naperville, Illinois — liners, crowns, caps and masonry repair — from its showroom at 1202-B 75th Street in Downers Grove, open seven days (Mon–Fri 10–5, Sat 11–4, Sun 1–4). Book online or call (630) 241-1919.

Wood, gas, and a Naperville winter

Why a Naperville chimney and fireplace get a look every year

If you burn wood, creosote builds up inside the flue. It is the tar that smoke leaves behind, and it burns: a thin coat is enough to feed a chimney fire. It comes off with brushes and a vacuum, far more easily before it glazes. A chimney with no cap collects leaves and nests from raccoons, squirrels and chimney swifts, and a blocked flue pushes smoke and carbon monoxide back into the room.

Naperville winters work hard on masonry: water gets into the crown and the mortar joints, freezes, and opens each crack a little more every year, until the top courses flake and the crown lets water down the flue. Caught early, it is a crown coat and some tuckpointing; caught late, a rebuild. The brick chimneys around the Riverwalk and the older streets downtown are the ones that show it.

A gas fireplace, insert or log set still uses the chimney, or a liner inside it, as its vent, and gas exhaust is wet and mildly acidic, so it eats an old clay liner from the inside and rusts a damper. The unit itself ages too: a thermopile weakens, a gasket hardens, a blower fills with dust. That is why the national standard, NFPA 211, recommends a chimney inspection every year, whatever you burn, and why the gas unit gets its own service on the same visit.

The Naperville visit

Clean, inspect, report, service.

Clean

Drop cloths, brushes and a filtered vacuum, one appointment

We do the cleaning and the inspection on the same visit: drop cloths down, the opening sealed, brushes and a filtered vacuum through the flue, the smoke chamber and the firebox. Then we look at everything, inside and out, from the damper to the cap or the chase cover, and write it up with photos. Brick flues downtown, metal flues in the chases, wood stoves, gas fireplaces and inserts: all of them.

Gas log set burning in a firebox lined with herringbone firebrick
A gas log set in a firebox lined with herringbone firebrick. Cracked firebrick and failed mortar are on our repair list; the burner under the logs is on the service list.

Inspect

NFPA 211 has three levels; we tell you which one

NFPA 211 describes three levels of inspection, and we tell you which one your Naperville chimney needs, and why, before the work starts. The inspection is part of the cleaning visit; nobody comes back a second day to do it.

  • 1
    Level 1: the chimney that has not changedEverything we can reach without tools, from the firebox and the damper to the cap or the chase cover: the yearly look for a Naperville house with the same fireplace and the same fuel as last year.
  • 2
    Level 2: the camera, the attic and the roofFor a house sale, after a chimney fire or a storm, or when a gas insert goes in: a camera run up the flue and a look at the attic and the roof, written so a buyer’s inspector can read it.
  • 3
    Level 3: opening the chimney or the wallRare: when a Level 2 finds a problem that cannot be judged another way, part of the chimney or the wall is opened to see what the camera could not. We say so first.

Report

Photographs of everything, and a plain list

You leave the visit with photos of the flue, the smoke chamber, the firebox, the crown and the cap or chase cover, and a plain list of what is fine, what to watch and what to fix now, with a written estimate for anything that needs fixing. Buying or selling? Give us the closing date and the report is written to it. Our guide to chimney cleaning and maintenance goes into more detail.

  • The three columns of a Naperville report
  • Fix now
  • Watch, and fix by a date
  • Fine as it is

Fireplace

Gas, wood or pellet, in Cress Creek or downtown

The gas fireplace in a Naperville chase is serviced by the same technician who checks the chase cover above it. Every make of gas, wood and pellet fireplace, insert and stove, whether it came from our floor or not; electric fireplaces only when we installed them.

  • 1
    The fireplace that shuts itself offIn Tall Grass and Ashwood Park the call is usually a 1990s or 2000s gas unit that lights and quits: a thermopile that has aged out, a pilot full of dust, a wall switch or a receiver. The technician tests before replacing and carries the common parts.
  • 2
    Once a year, the whole unitThe yearly service: glass off and cleaned, gasket checked and replaced if hardened, burner and pilot cleaned, logs and embers reset to the maker’s drawing, thermopile tested under load, remote and receiver batteries changed, blower cleaned, venting checked, a carbon monoxide reading at the unit.
  • 3
    Blowers, remotes and glassA fan that squeals or will not start, a remote that has gone silent, a white film baked onto the glass, a gasket that leaks at the frame: fixed with the maker’s parts, most on the first visit.
  • 4
    An insert for the downtown brickA cold wood fireplace near the Riverwalk becomes a gas insert vented through a liner in the old flue, sized from the flue measurement in the report. The choices are on our floor at full size, and the same crew installs it.

Reason enough to call

Signs a Naperville chimney or fireplace needs attention

Any of these at your Naperville house is worth a phone call:

  • 01Smoke that drifts back into the room while the fire is going
  • 02A campfire smell in summer, or a musty smell after rain
  • 03A shiny black coating inside the firebox, or pieces of clay tile from the liner
  • 04A white crust on the brick outside, or a rust streak down the siding of the chase
  • 05Water in the firebox, or a damper that sticks or will not close
  • 06A gas fireplace that shuts itself off, or a lazy yellow flame where a blue one used to be
  • 07A year or more since the last inspection or the last service

Any one of these is reason enough to call, and none of them gets cheaper by waiting a season.

Cleaned by us, repaired by us

What we repair in Naperville

The crew that cleans a Naperville chimney repairs it, and the technician who services the fireplace is the same person. These are the jobs we do most across the city.

Caps, covers, crowns, liners, brick

A stainless cap keeps rain and animals out of a brick flue near downtown Naperville; on the sided chases in the subdivisions we replace the chase cover once it rusts, common on a 1980s house in Cress Creek or Maplebrook. Crowns on the older houses around the Riverwalk are sealed or rebuilt. Rusted throat dampers are replaced, or a top-sealing damper fitted at the cap. A cracked clay flue is relined in stainless steel, and a liner sized to the insert goes in when one goes into a downtown brick fireplace. Cracked refractory panels in factory-built fireplaces are replaced; firebrick in a masonry firebox is repointed or replaced; failed mortar joints are ground out and repointed.

A new liner or a rebuild above the roof in Naperville needs a permit and an inspection from the city’s TED Business Group at 400 S. Eagle Street; a cleaning, a new cap or a crown repair usually does not. We pull the permit and book the inspection as part of the job. More on chimney repair.

Pilots, valves, blowers, glass

Whatever the maker of a Naperville gas fireplace, insert or log set, the repair list is the same short one: pilot assembly, thermocouple or thermopile, ignition module and electrode, valve, wall switch, thermostatic remote and receiver, blower and switch, glass, gaskets, embers and media. Wood and pellet stoves and inserts: gaskets and glass, firebrick, and the augers, igniters and control boards pellet units run on. Outdoor gas fireplaces, fire pits and grills: the burners and the ignition.

A unit whose maker has stopped making parts gets a straight answer, and the replacement, a direct-vent fireplace or an insert in the same opening, is installed by the people who wrote the report. Text a photo of the rating plate once we have called you back and the right parts ride out on the first trip. Smell gas? Leave, and call Nicor at 888-642-6748 or 911 from outside; a service request can wait until that is done.

Booking from Naperville

Getting to us and scheduling from Naperville

For chimney and fireplace work we come to you, from Cress Creek and Maplebrook to Tall Grass and Ashwood Park. Call (630) 241‑1919 or book online and we set a date and a time window. Tell us the make of your fireplace if you know it, whether a furnace shares the chimney, and, for a gas unit that has stopped working, what it does now and what it did before; a service request gets a call back within one business day.

The showroom is for choosing a fireplace. If the report shows a firebox past saving, or you want more heat than an open fireplace gives, take 75th Street east out of Naperville and we are in Downers Grove at Lemont Road, about seventeen minutes from the Municipal Center. Bring the report: it gives the flue size, which decides which inserts fit, and the inserts, log sets and doors are on display at full size. The estimate you take home is written.

Asked in Naperville

Questions we get from Naperville

We burn wood most winter weekends. How often does a Naperville chimney need cleaning?

Inspected every year, and cleaned when the inspection says so: for a fireplace used most weekends, usually every year. A few holiday fires can go longer between cleanings, but the flue still gets its yearly look; we do not clean a chimney that does not need it.

Our fireplace in Tall Grass is gas. Is there anything up there to check?

Yes. A gas fireplace or insert vents through a pipe or a liner, and gas exhaust carries water, which rusts a damper, eats a clay liner and pools on a chase cover. A vented log set still needs a clear flue, because a blocked one sends carbon monoxide into the room. A quicker visit than a wood chimney, not one to skip, and the unit itself gets its service while we are there.

Our chimney is a sided box with a metal top, not brick. Do you service those?

Yes. That is a factory-built fireplace, a metal flue inside a framed chase, and most Naperville houses built since the 1970s have one. We clean the flue, check the pipe joints, the cap and the refractory panels, and look at the chase cover for rust and standing water; the cover and the panels are what fail, and we replace both.

The gas fireplace in our Maplebrook house will not light. What can we check before you come?

Three things, none of them tools. The wall switch or the remote: try the other one, and put fresh batteries in the remote and in the receiver behind the lower louver. The gas shut-off: the key valve in the floor or the wall, or the small lever on the gas line, should be open. The pilot: on a standing-pilot unit, is it lit? If it is out and will not stay lit after the maker’s relighting steps, that is the thermocouple or the thermopile, and that is our visit.

What is in the written report?

Photos of the flue, the smoke chamber, the firebox, the crown and the cap or chase cover, and a plain list of what is fine, what to watch and what to fix now, with a written estimate for anything that needs fixing. If the gas fireplace was serviced on the same visit, a note of what was done and what to watch next year goes on the same page.

Can you fix what you find on the same visit?

Small things, often: a cap, a damper handle, a bit of sealant, a thermopile or a remote from the van. Liners, crowns, chase covers and tuckpointing are a second visit with the right materials and the permit if one is needed, and you have the written estimate first.

Nearby towns we also serve

Our chimney and fireplace crews cover the western suburbs from Downers Grove.

Naperville chimney and fireplace · sweep, inspection and service on one visit, written report with photos

Call (630) 241‑1919Book online

A Fireplace Store and MoreA Fireplace Store and More · Downers Grove, IL

Ready when you are.

Have your Naperville chimney cleaned and inspected, and the fireplace serviced, before the first fire of the season. One visit, one written report.

Call (630) 241‑1919Request an estimate

Showroom hoursMon–Fri 10–5Sat 11–4Sun 1–41202-B 75th St, Downers Grove

The showroom aisle at A Fireplace Store and More in Downers Grove — a linear gas fireplace set into a display wall

Our showroom, 75th Street, Downers Grove