Chimney sweep, cleaning and repair

Every job is quoted after it has been looked at, so we do not publish a price list. Five things move the figure: access to the chimney, what has to be put right before the repair itself can start, the number and height of the flues, whether it is one problem or the end of a chain, and the time of year you book. Send a photograph of the chimney and of the firebox and we can usually tell you which service it is and what the visit involves before anyone drives out. The cost panel above walks through all five factors.

Both, and by the same crew. We are a fireplace and chimney company with a showroom rather than an inspection service, so if the scope turns up a cracked liner or a failed crown we can quote and carry out the work ourselves. You are never handed a report and left to find someone.

Yes. The showroom at 1202-B 75th Street in Downers Grove is open seven days a week and carries caps, dampers, doors, screens and hearth accessories as well as the units. Bring a photograph of your chimney and we can usually tell you what you are looking at. A visit to your house is a booked appointment, but the counter is not.

The certificate we issue is the inspection report itself, not a credential. Our installers are licensed, our own crew does the work, with a small, hand-picked network of trades when a job calls for one, and we run the job. Inspections follow NFPA 211, Levels 1 through 3, including a video scope of the flue, and every inspection ends in a written report with photos: the fireplace inspection certificate a buyer, an insurer or a property manager can read.

Sweeping, inspection, caps, covers, relining and small masonry repairs right across DuPage and west Cook. A full masonry rebuild is a different scale of job and how far we go for one depends on its size. Tell us the job and we will tell you straight.

From late September onward, when people light their first fire and discover a problem. August and early September are much easier to book, and anything found then can be repaired while the fireplace is not needed.

We do not publish prices, and the honest answer is that it depends on the chimney. What moves the figure: how many flues the stack has, what you burn, how much creosote is in the flue and whether any of it has glazed, whether a camera run is needed on top of the standard inspection, and how easy the roof is to reach. Tell us what you have and we will tell you what the visit involves before anyone drives out, and the written report says what, if anything, needs doing next.

It depends on the level. A Level 1 inspection is part of every cleaning we do, so with a sweep it is one visit. A Level 2 adds a camera run through the whole flue and a look at the attic and the roof; it is the one a home sale, an insurance claim or a change of appliance asks for, so it is quoted as its own job. A Level 3, which opens part of the chimney or a wall, is rare and follows a Level 2 that has shown why it is needed. Tell us why you need it and we will say which level fits and what the visit involves. The inspection panel above says what each level reaches.

Have it inspected once a year, which is what NFPA 211, the national standard, calls for, and cleaned whenever that inspection finds a build-up of soot or creosote on the flue walls. For a wood fireplace used most winter weekends that usually means a sweep every year, before the first fire; a wood stove run all season may need one mid-winter as well. A gas fireplace or a vented log set leaves no creosote, but its flue still gets the yearly look for nests, rust and loose mortar. Every cleaning we do comes with the inspection on the same visit.

We lay drop cloths from the door to the hearth, close off the fireplace opening and run a filtered vacuum the whole time. We brush the flue from top to bottom, clean the smoke shelf and the firebox, check the damper, and look at the cap and the crown from the roof. Then the inspection: everything we can reach, inside and out, written up with photos of what we found, what needs doing now, what can wait and what we would leave alone. The drop cloths and the vacuum are there so the soot stays out of the room; the report is there so nothing is left to memory.

The middle of the three levels in NFPA 211. A Level 1 is the visual check of the parts you can reach that comes with every sweep. A Level 2 adds a camera run through the whole flue, a look at the chimney from the attic, the crawl space and the roof, and a written report with photos. It is the inspection called for when a house changes hands, when a gas insert or a log set goes into a wood fireplace, after a chimney fire, and after a storm or a lightning strike. A Level 3 opens part of the chimney or a wall when a Level 2 finds something that cannot be judged from outside.

It depends on the kind. A direct-vent gas fireplace is sealed and vents through a pipe out of the wall or up through the roof, so it needs no chimney at all, which is why one can go on an outside wall of a house that never had a fireplace. A B-vent gas fireplace needs a vertical vent pipe, not a masonry chimney. A vent-free unit needs neither and comes with its own rules and limits. A vented gas log set or a gas insert going into an existing wood fireplace uses the chimney that is already there, so that chimney has to be sound, and its damper is fixed open. Which one fits your house is a showroom conversation and a camera question.

Not swept the way a wood flue is, but looked at every year. Gas burns cleaner than wood, so there is no creosote, but the moisture in gas exhaust works on old mortar and clay tile, birds and squirrels nest in a flue that never gets hot, a log set burning with the flame set wrong leaves soot on the logs and the firebox, and a direct-vent cap on an outside wall can block with leaves. The yearly inspection catches all of that, and it is when we find the cracked tile or the open joint that decides whether a chimney can keep venting gas safely.

Only a little, and not for the thing that matters. A sweeping log releases a chemical that can dry out some tar-like creosote so that it flakes, which makes a later sweep easier. It does not remove anything from the flue, it cannot touch glazed creosote, and it cannot see a cracked tile, a blocked cap or a nest. It is sold as a help between sweeps, not as one. Use one if you like, but it is not a sweep and it is not an inspection.

Look up into the firebox with a flashlight. Most masonry fireplaces have a throat damper just above the firebox: a metal plate on a handle that pushes up and back, pulls forward, or turns on a threaded rod; when it is open you can see up the flue and feel cold air coming down. A top-sealing damper sits on the crown and is worked by a chain hooked inside the firebox: unhook it and the lid lifts on its spring. A factory-built fireplace has a lever at the top of the opening. With a vented gas log set the damper is clamped open on purpose and stays that way. Never light a fire until you have felt the draft, and a plate that is rusted shut or off its hinge is a service call, not a crowbar job.

Creosote, the tar left by wood smoke, catches fire inside the flue: a slow, smoldering one you may never notice, or a roaring one with dense smoke, a low rumble like a freight train and sparks or flame out of the top. If it happens, get everyone out of the house and call 911 first; if you can do it safely, close the glass doors and the air controls to starve the fire, then leave. Water on a hot masonry chimney can crack it, so leave the fire itself to the fire department. Afterwards, do not use the fireplace until a Level 2 inspection with a camera has looked at every tile, because a chimney fire cracks liners in places you cannot see from the hearth.

A metal cover on top of the flue with a mesh around it. It keeps rain and snow out of the flue, stops birds, raccoons and squirrels from getting in, and catches sparks on the way out. Almost every chimney should have one, and a great many in DuPage do not, or have one that has rusted through or blown off. Water is the reason it matters: a flue that takes rain for years ends with a rusted damper, a soaked smoke shelf, spalled brick and a smell in the room every time it rains. A cap is the simplest part of a chimney to put right, and we carry them at the showroom on 75th Street. The caps, chase covers and crowns panel above tells them apart.

A small peaked saddle built on the roof on the uphill side of a chimney, so that rain and snow coming down the slope split around the stack instead of piling against it. The residential code calls for one on any chimney more than 30 inches wide, measured along the ridge, that does not sit on the ridge itself, and a chimney without one usually shows it: a water stain on the ceiling near the fireplace, rot in the roof deck behind the stack, or rusted flashing. When a leak turns out to start there, the report says so, and the cricket and the flashing are put right together, with one of the roofing trades we work with when the roof has to be opened, and we run the job.

Outside: a crown with cracks or a piece missing, white staining on the brick, brick faces flaking off, mortar joints you can put a key into, a cap that is rusted, bent or gone, rust streaks down the siding below a metal chimney, and a gap where the stack meets the roof. Inside: water or a damp smell in the firebox after rain, a stain on the ceiling or the wall beside the chimney, bits of tile or mortar on the smoke shelf, a damper that will not open or close, smoke coming into the room, and a fire that is hard to keep going. Any one is worth a look; two together usually mean water has been in for a while. The drawing at the top of this page names the part behind each sign.

It depends on the part. A cap, a damper or a chase cover is usually fitted on the visit or the next one, because we carry them. A stainless steel liner is normally a one-day job. A crown is rebuilt in a day and then left to cure. Tuckpointing takes a day or two, and a rebuild of the top of the stack longer. Masonry needs mild weather, because mortar has to cure above freezing, so the brick work of the year gets done between spring and the first frost; caps, liners, dampers and leak repairs go on all winter. Book the inspection early in the fall and any repair it finds has time before the fireplace is needed.

Ask four things. Who does the work: the crew that inspects should be the crew that repairs, so a finding never turns into a hand-off to someone else. What the inspection is: the three levels of NFPA 211 by name, a camera run at Level 2, and a written report with photos that you keep. Where they are: an address you can walk into and a phone that is answered, because chimney questions come back in February. And what they say when nothing is wrong: a good report says what can wait as clearly as what cannot. We are a fireplace and chimney company with a showroom on 75th Street in Downers Grove, and the report is how we would like to be judged.

The passage inside the chimney that carries smoke and exhaust from the fireplace or the appliance up and out. In a masonry chimney it is lined with clay tiles or a stainless steel liner; in a factory-built fireplace it is a metal pipe inside a framed chase. One chimney can have more than one flue, one for each fireplace or furnace it serves, and each needs its own cap and its own inspection. When we say a flue needs relining, we mean that liner, not the brick around it.