What Does a Dirty Chimney Look Like?

How Often Do You Need a Chimney Cleaner/Sweep?

A favorite pastime of so many of us is sitting and telling stories around a crackling fire. When the fire dies down and the embers go out, though, there’s ash and soot to be swept up. That same soot can build up in the interior of your chimney and cause problems if ignored for too long. This points to the question: how often do you need the best chimney cleaner or chimney sweep?

The National Fire Protection Association Recommends:

Standard 211 of the National Fire Protection Association states that, “Chimneys, fireplaces, and vents shall be inspected at least once a year for soundness, freedom from deposits, and correct clearances. Cleaning, maintenance, and repairs shall be done if necessary.” This once-a-year national safety standard is the recommendation that most chimney sweeps will give you.

What If I Don’t Use the Fireplace Often?

It’s easy to assume that you can leave your fireplace and chimney alone if you’re not lighting fires. However, chimney damage can occur from other external factors such as earthquakes, storms, and moisture. Without an annual inspection, you might be accidentally ignoring worsening conditions that may ultimately damage the structure of your home.

Structural Damage: Wet weather can weaken the joints of your chimney, leading to cracks or structural shifts. It can also let unwanted moisture into your home. If not repaired in a timely manner, damage may become so severe that the chimney collapses.
Pests: An unused chimney can be the perfect warm, dry place for insects and animals to settle into. Squirrels, birds, spiders, and even mice can crawl and nest in your chimney, wreaking havoc on its masonry.

Creosote Buildup Requires The Best Chimney Cleaner

If you use your fireplace every so often during the colder months, you may have noticed a black, tar-like, shiny or fuzzy substance on the interior walls of the chimney. This substance is called creosote, a highly flammable chemical byproduct of burning wood. If you notice creosote buildup, call a chimney sweep before you light another fire, otherwise you might be looking at a fire a little larger than you anticipated.

5 Surprising Benefits of a Clean Chimney

A safe and efficient fireplace
Reduced smoky odors
Discover chimney damage before a costly repair is necessary
Prevent corrosion of chimney walls due to creosote buildup
Prevents carbon monoxide inhalation and poisoning

The Irish Sweep Makes Chimney Maintenance Easy

An annual cleaning by the best chimney cleaner like The Irish Sweep is an imperative step to proper chimney maintenance. Our technicians are proud of our 40+ years of experience servicing the Bay Area, and there’s no chimney problem we haven’t seen before! We can inspect the inside and outside of your chimney in detail to deep clean, discover damage, and recommend any repairs.

Schedule Our Best Chimney Cleaner Now

Our services at The Irish Sweep can help maintain and enjoy a wood-burning chimney and fireplace all winter and for years to come. We take great pride in offering our Bay Area chimney cleaning services to the resident community and the local Bay Area.

To schedule an appointment with our team, call us at (510)521-4088, or use this simple contact form by clicking here.

Here is a little known fact about creosote: It oxidizes. Creosote that was not able to be removed at the time of the last service appointment will actually change chemical composition, rendering it a substance that can now be removed. It’s never too late to schedule a chimney cleaning!

How Much Does it Cost to Hire Bay Area Chimney Cleaner/Sweep?

Looking to Hire a Local Bay Area chimney cleaner Expert? Chimney maintenance is a task that often flies under the radar, but it’s extremely important to preserving the structural integrity of your home and reducing flammable buildup in the chimney’s interior. When shopping for a reputable chimney sweep in the Bay Area, here’s how much you can expect to pay for the highest quality services.

What Sets a Chimney Cleaning Company Apart?

There’s no industry-wide standard or regulation for chimney cleaners or chimney sweeps. As a layperson, it can be difficult to know whether or not you can trust a chimney cleaning company or not. After all, a chimney is a structural element of your house: an improperly inspected chimney could be secretly harboring cracks, buildup, and damage that could compromise the safety of your home.

Licensing and Certification

The Irish Sweep proudly holds a masonry contractors license issued by the State of California and certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA). CSIA-certified companies receive top education and training in the field, and also sign a code of ethics promising only excellent service. A CSIA license and certification is a guarantee that you are working with seasoned experts in chimney safety.

Qualities of Reputable Chimney Cleaners/Sweeps

Excellent customer reviews or testimonials
Licensed and insured
Decades of experience
Transparency about pricing
Prompt service
Professional advice about continued chimney maintenance
Range of comprehensive services

How Much Does a Bay Area Chimney Cleaner/Sweep Cost?

Expect a wide range of prices when searching for a Bay Area chimney cleaning service. Since pricing may vary from company to company, it’s a good idea to check out the licensing and certification status, client reviews, and real-world indicators of top-notch service providers.

A basic chimney checkup and cleaning from a CSIA-certified company typically ranges between $200 and $300.
More intensive services, such as a thorough inspection with a chimney camera, may range from $100 to $500.
If your chimney has weathered significant damage, such as from a recent earthquake or storm, you need a detailed inspection to check for and resolve structural damage. This service may range from $1,000 to $5,000.

What Else Affects Chimney Cleaning Costs?

Any manufacturer will tell you that maintenance is key to reducing costs long-term. An annually cleaned, inspected chimney will last longer and function better than a neglected chimney. If you can’t remember your last chimney cleaning, it’s probably time for one. Otherwise, a good rule of thumb is to schedule your appointment once every 75 fires or per every cord of wood burned.

We are your local Bay Area chimney cleaner with 40+ years of experience.

Schedule a Chimney Cleaning Today

Our services at The Irish Sweep can help maintain and enjoy a wood-burning chimney and fireplace for years to come. We take great pride in offering our Bay Area chimney cleaning services to the resident community and the local Bay Area.

To schedule an appointment with our team, call us at (510)521-4088, or use this simple contact form by clicking here.

Enjoy a crackling fire this Holiday season with the knowledge that your chimney is clean and safe.

Why you Need a Home Inspection Chimney?

Before you buy your dream home, it’s important to get a full home inspection chimney. Home inspection chimney can uncover potentially life-threatening problems like toxic mold, faulty wiring that could cause a significant fire, or unstable structures just months away from collapsing. Often as buyers, we expect a professional home inspection chimney service to cover all aspects of the property, but the chimney needs a separate qualified evaluation for many safety reasons.

The health and safety of your family could depend on your decision to go through with a chimney inspection. Here’s some important information you need to know about why home inspection chimney are crucial when it comes to purchasing new homes.

What a home inspection chimney could uncover:

Potential Water Damage

Did you know that the foundation of a chimney is typically only 12 inches deep? That means that with earth movement from summer to winter, water damage from sprinklers, downspouts, and weather conditions could render your chimney foundation dangerous.

Neglected Spaces

Most inspections are carried out for the purpose of the loan lender or negotiations, and they may not always serve the buyer. Make sure that your home inspection includes often-forgotten spaces like the crawl space, basement, attics, chimney, fireplace, and loft area. A smart buyer can even use details from the full home inspection to negotiate with the seller.

Shifting from New Construction

Has the space around the chimney been newly landscaped, subject to digging, or under construction? Have there been significant earthquakes since the last chimney inspection? Shifting of the earth underneath or around the chimney could cause instability, which is why it’s important to make sure the inspection includes outdoor areas surrounding the chimney.

Instability from Cold Weather

With the drought and hotter weather, the hard soil can stabilize a chimney to some degree, but only temporarily. As cold weather moves in, dampness and moisture soften the soil around the base of the chimney, allowing movement in the structure which could render the chimney unstable. Even if the house is on a concrete slab and the chimney is surrounded by concrete, the concrete still absorbs the moisture and the chimney can still move. If your area experiences high winds, wet weather, and earthquakes, instability can be particularly dangerous.

Fireplace Inserts: Extra Credit

Once your fireplace and chimney have been thoroughly inspected and cleaned, you may be looking for ways to enjoy the ambience of a crackling fire. A fireplace insert is a fuel-efficient, heat-efficient method of doing just that. The closed combustion system of a fireplace insert can be 60% to 80% heat efficient, contrasting with traditional or older fireplaces that only convert 5% to 20% of fuel into usable heat. You can enjoy watching the flames through the glass doors of the fireplace insert while needing less firewood to keep them stoked.

Schedule a Home Inspection Chimney Now

Our services at The Irish Sweep can help you safely maintain and enjoy your wood-burning fireplace and chimney for years to come. To schedule an appointment with an expert, call us at (510)521-4088, or use this simple contact form by clicking here.

Is the Height of Your Chimney a Seismic Liability?

When was the last time you took a good look at your chimney? If you’re like most homeowners, it’s probably been a while since you gave it any thought. But a word of warning from a local chimney cleaner, the height of your chimney can actually become an earthquake liability, especially here in California. Should you reduce the height of your chimney?

Bay Area Chimneys

Chimney height reduction or seismic liability reduction are the same thing. In the Bay Area, we get most of our wet weather coming in from the south. What this ultimately means for homeowners is that south-facing chimneys deteriorate faster than they would if they were built on any other side of the house. Remember, the mortar that holds them together is water soluble. As a Lafayette chimney cleaner, this is one of the most dangerous things we see.

Reasons to Reduce Your Chimney Height

Over time, chimneys in our area become unsupported masonry structures that were exposed to the elements for a hundred years. Just think of what you would look like if you stood outside for decades in the rain and the sun!

A good reason to reduce the height of your chimney is to lower the risk of earthquake damage. More than a couple significant fault lines cross through the Bay Area, including the San Andreas Fault and 6 others that pose considerable risk. Just imagine the destruction of your chimney crashing into the yard, or in the direction of your neighbor’s home. Any Lafayette chimney cleaner will tell you what a serious hazard a leaning or broken chimney is.

Note that an unlined chimney is more susceptible to seismic activity, meaning it’s more likely to break during an earthquake. This is a good reason to reduce your chimney’s height and install a gas burning fireplace insert.

When Mortar Turns to Sand

Here’s an example of a broken chimney that had become a worrisome seismic liability. As you can see in the photo, this is an issue of poor water management around the perimeter foundation of the house. Because mortar is water soluble, chimneys wick up groundwater. So, if there are downspouts dumping water near the base of the chimney, it draws in the water, turning the mortar into sand. Of course, this process doesn’t occur overnight, but given enough time, it creates a dangerous situation that needs to be taken care of.

Bear in mind that the chimney is the heaviest part of any house, so this would be problematic even in states where earthquakes are uncommon. When the soil around the base of the chimney gets wet, that soft soil allows the chimney to sink. This is something most homeowners aren’t aware of, but it’s common knowledge if you’re a Lafayette chimney cleaner. It’s a glacially-slow process, but after enough rainy seasons have passed, it can weaken the entire structure. This creates a chimney that is more vulnerable to seismic activity. In fact, the chimney can be pulled apart from the fireplace fascia.

Talk to a Lafayette Chimney Cleaner

Gas-burning fireplace inserts don’t need a lot of height for venting, so you might consider installing one if you choose to reduce the height of your chimney. To schedule an appointment with The Irish Sweep, call us at (510)521-4088, or use this simple contact form by clicking here. Your safety is our number one priority. That’s why our team is taking special precautions during the pandemic. We look forward to hearing from you.

How to Spot Water Chimney Water Damage

If you’re a homeowner, you’re probably wondering how to tell if your chimney has already been affected by water. If so, here are some common ways that rain can cause chimney water damage.

Did you know that rain can cause crucial damage to your chimney? Erosion is a natural process that happens over time, even to the structures on our houses, not to mention that mortar, the substance that bonds the bricks together in a chimney, is water soluble.

Cracked Masonry

If you have a leak in your fireplace, it may be due to a crack in your chimney’s masonry. It’s important to have this taken care of as soon as possible, otherwise the issue can become worse. When masonry cracks aren’t taken care of, chimney repairs only become more expensive. Similarly, cracks in the chimney crown allow rainwater to leak into the flue lining.

Damaged Chimney Flue

Chimneys look strong, so it’s easy to forget they need maintenance just like the rest of your home. It’s important to schedule regular inspections in order to spot things like chimney water damage. Because the flue is on the inside of your chimney, it’s probably not something you’d ever notice on your own until it became a real issue. One sign there’s a problem is if thin tile shards begin to drop from the flue. As mortar joints age and deteriorate, they can allow moisture to seep into the chimney structure.

Rust or Moss

Rust is another red flag that chimney repairs are needed. Take note if you spot rust forming on the fireplace doors, the damper, or other accessories.

Or, is moss growing on the masonry? This can be another indication of chimney water damage. Moss will trap water and speed up the process of degradation.

Warped Flooring

Watch out for warped flooring and baseboards in the area surrounding your fireplace. In most cases, this is a clear sign of chimney water damage. Additionally, homeowners should look for efflorescence, a white, powdery mineral deposit that is left after water evaporates.

Other Water Sources

Other water sources are downspouts that terminate at the base of the chimney (or uphill of the chimney), as well as gutters that haven’t been properly cleaned, or that are canted in the wrong direction. This allows roof water to flow into the chimney. On a rainy day, every homeowner should go outside and look at the flow of water in order to see where the moisture travels.

Schedule Today

To schedule an appointment with The Irish Sweep, call us at (510) 521-4088, or use this simple contact form by clicking here. Your safety is our number one priority. That’s why our team is taking special precautions during this time. We look forward to hearing from you.

3 Things to Do Before Industrial Chimney Inspection and Repair

One of the best things about the cold season is gathering around the fire with friends and family to enjoy a cup of tea or some hot chocolate. But without proper industrial chimney inspection and repair, you risk the safety and security of your household due to a fire. Did you know that several things can damage your chimney? For example, the age of the building, wildlife, or extreme weather are just some of the reasons a chimney may need repairs.

The ideal time for industrial chimney inspection and repairs is just before autumn. But once you’ve booked your appointment, you may be wondering what to do before the experts arrive? With that in mind, here are 3 steps to take to prepare for your chimney inspection.

1) Clear Off Your Mantel

If your mantel is crowded with knickknacks, photo frames, or any other home decor, make sure you remove all of it before the chimney technicians arrive. Why is this important? It prevents anything valuable from being accidentally broken, and it also helps your technicians to get the job done faster because nothing is in their way. Also, put aside anything around the hearth while you’re at it.

2) Cover Nearby Furnishings

The chimney technicians who do this job should cover the area surrounding your fireplace in order to protect it from soot. The process of cleaning a chimney is much more meticulous than it used to be. The whole process is done with the help of a modern industrial vacuum that does not raise dust. Although, if you have delicate items near your fireplace, we strongly recommend that you cover them with sheets or plastic to protect them.

3) Write Down Your Questions

Before the pros arrive, write down any questions you may have. You can ask them during your appointment to gather all the information you need about taking care of your fireplace and chimney. This way, you won’t have to call the company later to ask any forgotten questions.

Schedule Industrial Chimney Inspection Today

Autumn is here, and winter is on its way. If you’re ready to schedule chimney inspection and repair services, give us a call at The Irish Sweep at (510) 521-4088, or fill out a quick contact form by clicking here.