Smoke Chamber Repair

The smoke from your fireplace needs a place to escape. Otherwise, things could get dangerous, fast. A smoke chamber repair includes sealing gaps or voids in the chamber so that smoke has a smooth passageway to exit your chimney.

The black stains is soot from hot gases leaking through crack getting close to combustibles.

smoke chamber

Factory Built Chimney Flue

These before and after pictures of a factory built chimney flue. That ugly matierial you see in the before is creosote. Creosote is a byproduct of incomplete combustion of wood, typically most prevalent when first starting a fire and when burning unseasoned wood. Creosote is very flamible and where large deposits accumulate in a chimney, a chimney fire is very possible and extremely dangerous. The normal temperature in a chimney during a regular fire would be around 500 degrees. When a chimney fire occurs the temperature can go as high as 1800 degrees. When they occur, they can destroy the chimney and set the house on fire. Removing the hazardous creosote and inspecting the chimney for safety and integrity are the two main purposes of a chimney sweep.

Factory built flue dirty Factory built flue cleaned

Dryer Vent Fires

The stuff you see in the photo is dryer vent lint. And in this case the dryer vent was completely stuffed. Dryer vent fires are more common events than one might think. But if you look at it not necessarily unexpected. When you dry your clothes, you are using flame and very hot air, in the case of a gas dryer. Dryer vents can get full of a very fine lint, which is extremely flammable, that combination can produce “dryer vent fires”.

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Damaged Chimney Shrouds

Chimney shrouds can get damaged or often times tend to rust if near the beach. Here is a damaged chimney shroud we replaced.

damaged chimney shroud replaced

Repairing Your Chimney is Important in CA

In an area where earthquakes are not uncommon, it is important to repair your chimney as soon as cracks appear. An un-repaired, unstable chimney is much more likely to sustain unrepairable damage during even a minor earthquake.

Here is a rebuild of a chimney we did.

chimney rebuild