Can You Pass the Chimney Inspection This Year?

It’s summertime in the Chicagoland area! The birds are out, making nests in chimneys, rain soaking into the bricks, heat and humidity wearing away slowly on the outside of your chimney. As the sun beats down on the chimney cap, you might notice some small bits of rust tucked away underneath the cap’s edges and the beginnings of new cracks forming on your chimney’s concrete crown. These are just small problems that the summer likes to expose.

Yes, it’s true, you aren’t using your chimney this summer. With these hot temperatures across Chicagoland, we hope you are not! Just because it’s summer, doesn’t mean that deterioration stops. Even if you just got your chimney inspected earlier this year, it might have undergone too much stress from the rain, hail and wind conditions.

Tips For Chimney Maintenance

We always recommend that you to make an appointment for a chimney inspection before the fall busy season and have a Superior Chimney certified technician evaluate and complete any necessary chimney repairs. Here are 4 ways that will help reduce the amount of chimney repairs this summer.

1. Keep your chimney waterproofed! Your chimney’s porous mortar, bricks and/or stone are prone to the most damage during the summer. Water from rain and high humidity are absorbed in the bricks and mortar. Having it sit there for months at a time causes slow and steady deterioration, which at first you can’t see. Your chimney professional will waterproof the chimney with ChimneySaver, keeping moisture from being absorbed.
2. Rusting on your chimney cap is inevitable, but may be a sign you need to replace it. Without a properly working chimney cap, animals, debris and water can get inside the flue. You don’t want those little birds living inside the flue, cute as they are! Replace the chimney cap by a certified professional from Superior Chimney.
3. Inspect your chimney at Least Once Per Year. Have you noticed missing mortar? It looks like deep holes? Any strange smells coming from the firebox? If so, call Superior Chimney as soon as possible. The goal is to keep the cost of repairs to a minimum.
4. Cleaning your chimney is difficult to do on your own. We recommend that if there’s black or white streaks on the outside (creosote or calcium buildup from water damage), to call Superior Chimney certified professionals. The cleaning process can be very dirty and challenging to do yourself. By having a certified technician maintain the health of your chimney and fireplace, you’ll reduce the cost of repairs.

No Damage? Can you Pass the Chimney Inspection? Hold on, not quite! Maybe you didn’t notice any of the above damages, and you recently got your chimney waterproofed. You still need to have an annual inspection. Though it may look good on the outside, there’s always something going on inside of the chimney that can manifest into a bigger problem. Only a Superior Chimney professional can tell you if your chimney passes this year’s inspection! Call us at 877-244-6349 to make an appointment today.

This post first appeared on https://www.superiorchimney.net