Woodland Hills · Utah County
Inspecting Multi-Flue Chimneys in Woodland Hills
Woodland Hills is almost entirely large custom houses on steep, wooded lots, and a house like that often has more chimney than its owner realizes. One masonry stack on the outside can contain several completely separate flues, and they are not in the same condition as each other.
The houses on this slope tend to be big, and big houses were designed with more than one hearth. A great room fireplace, a basement or family room fireplace, sometimes a bedroom appliance, plus the furnace and water heater venting. Several of those often share a single visible stack while running as independent flues inside it.
Why each flue is a separate question
They were built at the same time, but they have not lived the same life. The great room flue may have burned four cords a year for two decades while the bedroom flue has been idle since the house was finished. The idle one is not the safer one. Unused flues collect nests, hold moisture, and their dampers rust immobile, and it is common to find the worst condition in the one nobody thought about. An inspection that reports on a chimney rather than on each flue in it is not telling you very much.
The wall between them
Multiple flues inside one stack are separated by masonry, and where that separation has deteriorated, exhaust from one flue can cross into another. That is the failure mode people have never heard of and it is genuinely dangerous, because it can put combustion products from an appliance into a flue serving a room. It is only visible with a camera, which is one of the reasons a Level 2 is what we recommend on any stack carrying more than one flue.
Living at the edge of the trees
Homes here sit against oak brush and timber, and that shapes what an inspection pays attention to. We look hard at whether every flue is capped with correctly sized spark-arresting mesh, at the condition of that mesh, and at whether anything is growing or leaning close enough to a termination to matter. Insurers in wildland interface areas increasingly ask questions about exactly this, and having a dated report with photographs is a useful thing to hold.
Buying or selling on the hill
Order a Level 2 and do it early enough that the findings can be acted on before a closing date. On a house with three flues, a tall exterior stack and difficult roof access, that is not a same-week job to schedule, and it is not a small item to discover late.
Questions
Inspection in Woodland Hills — common questions
How do I know how many flues my chimney has?
Count the terminations on top rather than the stacks from the ground. One masonry chimney can carry two, three or more separate flues, each with its own opening at the crown. If you cannot see the top safely, that count is part of what an inspection establishes.
One of our fireplaces has never been used. Should it be inspected?
Especially that one. Unused flues attract nesting animals, hold damp, and have dampers that seize. They also tend to be uncapped, because nobody thought about them. In our experience the neglected flue is more often the one with a problem.
What is a Level 2 inspection and why do you keep recommending it here?
It adds a camera survey of the full interior of each flue to the visual inspection. On a multi-flue stack it is the only way to check the separation between flues and the condition of liners you cannot otherwise see. On a single, simple, regularly swept flue a Level 1 is often enough.
Our insurer is asking about wildfire risk around the chimney. Can you help?
We can document the condition of your caps and spark-arresting screens with photographs as part of the report. What we cannot do is speak for your insurer's criteria, so send us their requirement and we will make sure the report addresses it.
Also in Woodland Hills
Our other services here
Chimney Sweep Chimney Repair Fireplace Repair Installation Gas Fireplace Caps & Dampers Dryer Vents All Woodland Hills services
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