Chimney and Fireplace Work in Lehi, Utah

What the wind does here

Lehi sits at the narrow point where Utah Valley meets Salt Lake Valley, and air moving between the two has to accelerate through that gap. The result is a town that takes more sustained wind at roof height than places a few miles south of it. Wind matters to a chimney in a specific way. It works storm collars loose, lifts poorly fastened caps, and across a tall exterior flue it can hold the draft down long enough to push a lungful of smoke back into the room. On a roof in this city we spend more time on the termination than we would elsewhere.

The old grid

Around the original blocks near Main Street the houses are brick, and their stacks were laid in soft mortar a very long time ago. Those flues were sized for a different fuel and many were relined later, sometimes competently and sometimes not. The defect we find most often is a smoke chamber with open joints sitting directly behind a firebox that looks perfectly sound from the living room. Nothing about it is visible without a light and a mirror, or a camera.

The subdivisions

Everything raised on the benches and out west over the last thirty years is a different animal entirely. The fireplaces are factory-built metal, they vent through framed and sided chases rather than brick, and the parts that give out are sheet metal: a chase cover that ponds water, a collar that has lost its seal, a cap rusted through at the mesh. A direct-vent gas unit adds a hooded terminal low on an exterior wall, where drifting snow, sprinkler spray and overgrown landscaping all reach it.

Neither type is harder than the other. They each need a technician who walks up already knowing which one is in front of him. We carry brushes and parts for both, and every visit ends with photographs of what we found rather than a verbal summary at the door.