Millcreek · Salt Lake County
Finding Out What Is Actually Inside a Millcreek Flue
The most common problem we document in Millcreek is not damage. It is an appliance somebody installed years ago into a flue that was never sized or lined for it.
A rambler on this bench changes hands three or four times in fifty years. Somewhere in that history a wood stove or an insert went into the masonry fireplace, often without a stainless liner running the full height of the chimney. The appliance works. It heats the room. And the flue above it is now oversized, cold, and depositing tar at a rate the original open fireplace never came close to.
You cannot see any of that from the room. It only shows up on camera.
What the levels mean in practice
A Level 1 inspection is the routine annual look: the readily accessible parts of the appliance, the firebox, the visible flue and the exterior. It is the right scope when nothing has changed and nothing is wrong.
A Level 2 adds a camera scan of the full flue interior and access to attics, crawl spaces and basements where the chimney passes through. It is what you want when a house is being sold, when an appliance is being changed, or after anything unusual has happened in the chimney. Most Millcreek retrofits should have had one at the time of install and did not.
A Level 3 means opening something up, and we do not reach for it lightly. It is for a suspected concealed defect that the camera has already given us reason to believe in.
What turns up on this bench
Unlined masonry above a modern appliance is the headline. Behind it come cracked clay tiles with open joints, connectors pushed into a flue rather than sealed to a liner, smoke chambers that were never parged smooth, and clearance problems where framing sits closer to hot masonry than it should. Older bench homes with additions built around them are worth extra attention, because a chimney that used to run up an outside wall can end up buried inside conditioned space.
You get the footage
Every inspection ends with photographs and video from the flue, not a checklist with ticks on it. If we are recommending a liner or a rebuild, you should be able to look at the same picture we based that on and see the crack for yourself. If the system is sound, you get that in writing too, which is the outcome most inspections here actually reach.
Questions
Inspection in Millcreek — common questions
A previous owner put a wood insert in our fireplace. Does that need a special inspection?
It needs a Level 2 with a camera. The question is whether a correctly sized stainless liner runs from the appliance all the way to the top. If it does not, the flue above the insert is oversized and cold, which drives heavy creosote and can allow flue gases into the masonry.
We are selling the house. Which inspection does a buyer expect?
A Level 2 is the defensible one, because it documents the interior of the flue rather than just what is visible. It also removes the argument late in a sale, since the report and the footage exist before anyone asks for them.
Is an inspection worth it if we only burn a few times a winter?
Often yes, and for a different reason. Chimneys that sit idle are the ones that collect nests, hold moisture and lose mortar quietly. Light use does not protect a flue from weather, animals or a deteriorating liner.
Do you inspect the chimney if we only have a gas log set?
We do. Gas produces very little visible deposit but a great deal of water vapor, and that vapor attacks clay tile and mortar joints from the inside. Flues serving gas appliances in Millcreek homes fail quietly and are worth a camera look.
Also in Millcreek
Our other services here
Chimney Sweep Chimney Repair Fireplace Repair Installation Gas Fireplace Caps & Dampers Dryer Vents All Millcreek services
Nearby
Inspection in neighboring cities
West Jordan West Valley City Bluffdale Cottonwood Heights Draper