Chimney and Fireplace Service in West Jordan

The chase, not the chimney

Drive any of the subdivisions that filled in the west side of the city from the late 1980s onward and count what is on the rooftops. Almost none of it is brick. It is a framed box clad in the same siding or stucco as the house, with a metal flue running up the middle of it and a flat sheet metal lid on top. That is a legitimate system and it works well while it is intact. But it is a manufactured assembly with a service life, not a masonry stack that stands for a century, and the parts that give out are the parts no homeowner has ever looked at.

The consequence of that difference is worth understanding. When water gets past a rusted lid on a brick chimney it soaks masonry, which is unpleasant but slow. When it gets past the lid on a framed chase it drops into a wood cavity that has no way to dry out. By the time anyone notices, it usually shows up as a stain on a bedroom ceiling, and the framing has been wet for several seasons by then.

The older streets

Nearer the river and the original grid there is real brick, some of it fifty years older than any subdivision in the city. Those flues were sized for a different fuel and a different way of heating a house, and a good many have been adapted at least once since. On those we look hardest at the crown, at the mortar joints on the weather side, and at whether a liner was ever put in when the appliance was changed. Adapting the firebox without adapting the flue is the single most common shortcut we undo.

Air that stops helping

For days at a stretch in midwinter the valley holds a layer of cold air under a warm lid, and while that is sitting on top of the city the pressure difference driving your chimney is at its weakest. Fires burn cooler under those conditions, and cooler fires leave far more deposit behind than hot ones. If your fireplace only spills smoke into the room on the days the air outside looks worst, that is not imagination. It is a draft problem that only appears under a specific set of conditions, which makes it easy to dismiss and worth diagnosing properly.

We are licensed and insured. Every sweep here runs with the firebox opening sealed and a filtered vacuum going for the whole visit, and we photograph what we found so the report is something you can look at rather than something you have to take on trust.