A family chimney company for Nassauville homes

If a chimney fire is burning now, get everyone out of the house and call 911 from outside, and let the fire department deal with it before anything else. What follows the fire needs attention too, once the fire department has gone and the house is quiet again.

A fire in a flue can be loud and obvious, with flames or sparks from the top, or it can burn slowly and pass unnoticed, and either kind can crack flue tiles, warp a damper, buckle a metal liner or overheat a factory-built pipe, and open gaps in the mortar where heat escapes toward the framing.

NFPA 211 calls for a more thorough examination of a chimney after a fire or any other event likely to have damaged it, and until that examination is done, the fireplace should stay unused. Signs that a fire happened, even one nobody saw, include creosote that looks puffy or honeycombed rather than flat and shiny, flakes of burnt deposit on the roof or the ground, a warped or discolored damper or cap, cracked or shifted flue tiles, and a burnt smell in rooms next to the chimney.

Our examination follows the flue from top to bottom, and anything cracked or displaced is written down with where it sits. A clay tile flue with damaged tiles is relined or rebuilt as the estimate sets out, a metal liner that has buckled is replaced, and a factory-built chimney is repaired only with parts listed for that system.

The flue is cleaned before any liner goes in, since leftover deposits are the fuel that burned in the first place. The estimate separates what the fire damaged from ordinary wear, and it says plainly when the fireplace can go back into use. If the fire department left you any paperwork or advice, share it with us, since it helps place the damage.

When the house is safe again, our chimney pros start with a free inspection in Nassauville. Call (904) 920-5495 to arrange it, and ask about 10% off a repair booked within 72 hours of that inspection.