Black gas fireplace insert burning in a stacked stone surround above a wood floor

A Fireplace Store and More · Downers Grove, IL

Orland Park, Illinois41.63° N, 87.85° Wunder thirty minutes from the showroom

Chimney cleaning and fireplace service in Orland Park, IL.

Orland Park is under half an hour south-east of our shop on 75th Street, and almost every fireplace in the village is the one its builder put in between the 1970s and the 1990s, which are the years a factory-built fireplace was designed to last. The visit covers the flue, the cover, the panels and the burner together: a chimney sweep, a chimney inspection, the fireplace service, and a written report with photos and a plain repair-or-replace answer.

Call (630) 241‑1919Request an estimate

A black gas insert in a stacked stone surround above a wood floor. The insert replaced a worn Orland Park builder unit in the same opening; the chase behind the stone got a new cover the same week.

  • Drive time28minLemont Road to I-55, then La Grange Road south to 143rd
  • Signs to watch7the seven things an Orland Park builder fireplace shows before it fails
  • Brands on our floor19for the day the builder unit is replaced; every make serviced until then
  • Days a week7the showroom on 75th Street is open every day, Sunday afternoons included
About A Fireplace Store and More

A Fireplace Store and More cleans, inspects and repairs chimneys in Orland Park, 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.

Built in three decades

Why an Orland Park builder fireplace and its chimney need a yearly look

Orland Park was incorporated in 1892, but the village that stands today was built in three decades: 6,391 people in 1970, 23,045 in 1980, 35,720 in 1990, 51,077 in 2000. The mall on La Grange Road opened in 1976 and the subdivisions filled in around it, and nearly every one of those houses came with the fireplace the builder offered: a metal firebox in a wood-framed chase with a metal flue inside it, sometimes two on one chase in the bigger colonials, and a chase cover set on at the end of the build. A metal chimney rusts where a brick one crumbles. The cover on top goes first, then the cap, while thirty or forty winters crack the firebox panels, cloud the glass and wear out the fan and the pilot underneath.

The older streets near the Metra station at 143rd Street have the exception: brick chimneys laid for wood on the houses that were here before the subdivisions, with clay tile liners that have open joints after a century and crowns that have shed their mortar. Many have not seen a fire in years, and the chimney above has gone as long without a look.

A wood fire leaves creosote on the flue walls and a chimney fire cracks a clay tile or warps a metal one; gas is cleaner but its exhaust is wet, and it eats at old mortar and liners a season at a time. A blocked or rusted vent pushes carbon monoxide back into the room with nothing to smell. Under NFPA 211, the national standard for chimneys and vents, the answer is an inspection every year whatever you burn, and in Orland Park the builder gas unit is serviced on the same visit.

The Orland Park visit

Clean. Inspect. Decide. Service the unit.

Clean

Cloths, vacuum, brushes, both flues if there are two

Drop cloths from the front door to the hearth, the opening sealed, the vacuum running from the first brush to the last. Flue brushed, smoke shelf and firebox cleaned, damper tried; then the roof, for the cap, the cover and the crown. Masonry chimneys near the old village center, factory-built fireplaces everywhere else, wood stoves, gas fireplaces and inserts: all of them, and a two-flue chase gets both flues done on the same visit.

Black fireplace door with a fire burning behind it in a brick fireplace with a television above
A black fireplace door fitted to a brick fireplace, the television mounted above it. Doors change what the room looks like and how the fire draws; the chimney above them is unchanged and still gets its yearly look.

Inspect

Level 1, 2 or 3 under NFPA 211, with the cover in every level

The inspection comes with the cleaning, on the same trip down La Grange Road. The level, one of NFPA 211’s three, follows from what has changed since the last visit; on a builder unit the chase cover is checked at every level, and you hear which level, and why, before we begin.

  • 1
    Level 1: the builder unit, unchangedThe Orland Park house where nothing has changed since the last visit: same unit, same fuel, no complaints. Firebox, damper and flue from inside, cap and cover from the roof, and the chase or the brick from the ground.
  • 2
    Level 2: a change, or a saleGas logs or an insert going into the fireplace the house came with, a chimney fire, storm damage, or an Orland Park house being sold. The camera goes the length of the flue and the report is written for the buyer’s inspector.
  • 3
    Level 3: rare, and announced firstA serious fault is suspected and part of a wall or the chase has to come open; we say what we expect to find before it is opened.

Report

Keep, repair or replace, in writing

You are left with a written report and photos, sorted into now, later and leave alone, with the figure for the first list. For a builder unit with no parts left, the report says keep, repair or replace, in writing, and names the replacement that fits the opening. The words the report uses are explained in our chimney cleaning and maintenance guide.

  • What an Orland Park report decides
  • Repair now
  • Repair before next season
  • Keep as it is

Fireplace

The builder unit, serviced while the parts last

In Orland Park the service work is nearly all builder gas fireplaces, opened by the same technician who swept the chimney. Gas, wood or pellet, fireplace, insert or stove, whoever the builder bought it from; electric units only if we installed them ourselves.

  • 1
    Clouded glass, a fan gone loud, a pilot that drops outThe three Orland Park complaints on a 1980s or 1990s unit. The glass is cleaned or replaced and its gasket renewed, the blower gets a new bearing or a new fan, the pilot assembly is cleaned and the thermopile tested under load.
  • 2
    The unit’s yearly hourGlass off, cleaned; gasket checked; burner and pilot cleaned; logs and embers set back to the drawing; thermopile tested; wall switch, remote and receiver checked on fresh batteries; blower cleaned; vent and cover checked from the roof; carbon monoxide reading taken.
  • 3
    Two fireplaces on one chaseThe bigger colonials have two units on one chase, and both get serviced on the visit; if one is wood and one is gas, the gas side gets the camera, because vented gas exhaust is harder on a flue than a wood fire.
  • 4
    When the parts are goneA discontinued unit with no panels or glass left gets a plain answer in writing: a new direct-vent gas fireplace or an insert in the same opening, with a new cover on the chase. Our floor has it at full size, and the installers are the people who inspected the old one.

Seven things a builder fireplace shows

When an Orland Park fireplace is asking for a visit

Any of these at an Orland Park house means the fireplace is asking for a visit:

  • 01A fire in the family room that never quite draws until the flue is warm
  • 02The firebox smelling sour after a summer downpour
  • 03A crack across the back panel of the firebox you can slide a card into
  • 04Rust on the chase cover you can see from the driveway, or a brown stain on the wall beside the fireplace
  • 05The builder unit’s glass gone cloudy, its fan gone loud, or its pilot refusing to hold
  • 06Chirping or scratching above the damper in April
  • 07Thirty winters on the unit, and no memory of the last look

None of these is an emergency on its own. All of them mean it is time for someone to look, and on a builder unit a new cover, a set of panels or a thermopile caught early is the whole repair.

Cleaned, serviced and repaired by one crew

What we repair in Orland Park

The people who clean your Orland Park chimney are the people who do the chimney repair, and the technician for the fireplace repair is on the same truck down La Grange Road.

Covers, caps, panels, liners

On the builder fireplaces the usual list is a new stainless steel chase cover, a cap, cracked firebox panels and a flue pipe with a gap at a joint; when the maker of a forty-year-old unit is gone, a new direct-vent gas fireplace in the same opening with a new cover is the honest answer, and we do that too. Near the old village center, the brick chimneys get caps, rebuilt crowns and tuckpointing, and a stainless liner where the clay tile has cracked or a new appliance needs a smaller flue. Dampers, including the top-sealing kind that closes at the cap, go in on any flue.

Relining, rebuilding above the roof and running a new gas line are permit jobs, and Orland Park issues the permit through its Development Services department’s online permit portal; the application, the inspection booking and the walk-through with the inspector are ours. The chimney installation and repair page covers the masonry side.

Pilots, panels, fans, glass

The builder unit’s repairs, in the order they come up in Orland Park: the thermopile, the pilot assembly, the blower and its switch, the receiver and the remote, the glass and its gasket, the refractory panels, then the ignition module, the valve and the wall switch, on any make. Wood and pellet stoves and inserts: gaskets, glass and firebrick, augers and igniters on the pellet units. Patio fireplaces, fire pits and gas grills come under the same visit, burners and ignition.

A builder unit with no parts left is replaced in the same opening by the crew that condemned it, chosen from our floor under half an hour away. Send the make from the plate behind the lower grille with the request and we ring you back within one business day to set the time. Smell gas? That is Nicor’s call first, 888-642-6748, or 911, made from outside the house.

Down La Grange Road

Setting up an Orland Park visit

Nothing on this page happens at the shop; it all happens at your house in Orland Park. The truck takes Lemont Road south to I-55, then La Grange Road south, and is in the village in under half an hour in normal traffic. Call (630) 241‑1919 or book online, and have three things to hand: the fuel, the year of the last cleaning, and the make and model from the plate behind the lower grille if the fireplace came with the house. For a gas unit that has stopped working, add what changed, and we ring back within one business day with a time.

What Orland Park callers ask first is whether the builder fireplace is worth fixing at all. The visit is the answer: the flue, the cover, the panels and the burner are checked as one thing, and the report comes down on repair or replace. If the answer is replace, the showroom is under half an hour away, 1202-B 75th Street in Downers Grove, unit B, parking at the door, open every day including Sunday afternoons. Direct-vent fireplaces, inserts and doors stand on the floor, the electric ones burning.

Asked in Orland Park

Questions we get from Orland Park

Our Orland Park house came with a 1980s fireplace whose maker no longer exists. Is it still worth cleaning and inspecting?

Yes. The parts that get cleaned and inspected, the flue, the cap and the chase cover, are standard whoever made the box, so the yearly look is the same, and the pilot, the thermopile and the blower are common parts we carry. The maker matters at the repair: panels and glass for a discontinued unit may no longer exist, and if they do not, the report says so and names the replacement that drops into the same opening.

Our colonial has an upstairs and a downstairs fireplace sharing one chase. Is that one job or two?

One visit, two flues. Each flue is swept and inspected on its own, the shared chase cover is checked once, both gas units are serviced, and the report covers everything. If one flue serves a gas log set and the other a wood fire, the gas side gets the camera, because vented gas exhaust is wetter and harder on a flue than a wood fire.

A brown stain has appeared on the wall beside our fireplace. Is that the chimney?

Nearly always. The chase cover has rusted through, and the rain that gets in runs down the outside of the flue until it shows on the drywall beside the fireplace, or a floor lower. The fix is a stainless steel cover with a drip edge; the inspection also checks the framing inside the chase, because the stain is often the last thing to show.

The blower on our gas fireplace rattles and then stops. Is it worth fixing on a unit this old?

Usually, yes, because the blower is a standard part whoever made the fireplace: the fan itself, its bearing, the snap switch that turns it on when the firebox is hot, or the speed control. The technician replaces what has failed, cleans the fan housing, and while the lower louver is off services the pilot and tests the thermopile, so the unit gets its year’s attention on the same visit. If the panels behind it are cracked and no longer made, the report says so and gives the replace option in writing.

We want to turn the wood fireplace into gas logs. Does the chimney need anything?

A camera run first, because vented gas logs use the whole flue and their exhaust is wetter than a wood fire’s. A sound flue takes the logs with the damper clamped open; a flue with a cracked tile or a gapped joint gets a liner first. The gas line is permit work in Orland Park; we file through the village’s online portal and book the inspection with the job.

What is creosote, and why does it matter?

Creosote is what a wood fire leaves on the walls of a flue: the tar in the smoke, condensed on the cooler metal or tile higher up. In its first form it is a dusty soot a brush takes off; left for a few seasons it hardens to a glaze that a brush cannot touch and that burns, hot enough to crack a tile or warp a metal flue, which is a chimney fire. The yearly look measures how much is there and in which form, and the cleaning takes it out while it is still the kind that comes out.

Around Orland Park

The same crew serves these towns on the way from Orland Park to 75th Street; each has its own page.

Orland Park chimney and fireplace · builder unit serviced, chase checked, one visit, one report

Call (630) 241‑1919Book online

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

Ready when you are.

The chimney behind an Orland Park builder fireplace rusts before it crumbles, and the unit under it is at the end of its design life. Book the visit now, while a new cover and a thermopile are still the whole repair.

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