Enlisting a Chimney repair contractor to do repairs on your smokestack done in your home in Knoxville, TN can be overwhelming undertaking. This is on the grounds that many individuals will claim to be Chimney repair contractors when you begin your hunt, yet not every one of them have what it takes and skill to take care of business right.
Regular chimney repair and maintenance is an essential maintenance step to keep your home safe. Your fireplace keeps you warm in the winter, but without your chimney, there wouldn’t be a way for the fire and harmful gases to stay in your fireplace only. With winter approaching, now is the perfect time to have your chimney inspected and repaired before you use it this winter. But how will you find a chimney repaired contractor in Knoxville, TN that will value your chimney safety as much as you do?
Despite the importance of chimney safety, there’s a large amount of chimney sweeps out there who aren’t capable of helping you keep your chimney safe. And unfortunately choosing the wrong chimney could end up costing you way more than just the money you wasted on a job poorly done. Even a small house fire could result in damage that costs way more than any chimney inspection ever would.
Doing a bit of research before hiring a Knoxville chimney sweep will help you choose a contractor you feel comfortable with, ensuring that you have the peace of mind you deserve after your annual chimney inspection.
Here are some helpful questions you could ask a chimney repair contractor before hiring them:
Even after asking all the most important questions, it’s still important that you choose a business you feel comfortable with. Don’t feel pressured into choosing a business if you don’t feel like they truly care about your best interests. Chimney safety is about keeping your home and family safe, and a contractor that cares about delivering good service will understand that you want to hire someone who realizes the importance of chimney safety.
As mentioned before, certification is a good sign of a professional chimney contractor. In many cases, this certification also indicates that the business is concerned with ongoing education to keep up with the latest news in fire safety and chimney repairs. However, there are also certified chimney sweeps who care more about getting certifications to make you feel a false sense of trust, even though they don’t care about delivering good service to their customers. In this case, you might feel like you can rely on the certification, only to end up with a chimney that’s no safer after the inspection than before.
Because of this reviews and references should still be a step in choosing the right business to work with. You want to work with a business that has a reputation of doing the job properly. One that gives friendly service and cares about making your home safer.
So while certifications are certainly an important step in choosing a chimney sweep, as a customer, you deserve to ask more questions and do more research before choosing a company to work with. Standards for getting certified with any specific entity aren’t always high enough, making it too easy for chimney sweeps to obtain certifications. This is usually the case when the organization that offers a certification is more concerned about making it easy for businesses to get the certification rather than being concerned about your best interests as a homeowner.
The most well-known and trusted organization regulating chimney safety in the US is the Chimney Safety Institute of America. However, after certification, the CSIA has little control over how chimney contractors run their businesses, and so they encourage customers to report any gross misconduct from accredited business.
If the chimney sweep business is registered with the Better Business Bureau, the CSIA encourages customers to check if there are any unresolved complaints. Checking a business’s online reviews and social media can also help you to see how the business responds to negative feedback in the case of disagreements.
If you would like to hire a chimney professional before the winter is here, feel free to call Chimney Sweeps West. At Chimney Sweeps West, we understand that your safety comes first. Our passion is helping to keep you safe, and so meeting customers who care about chimney safety brings us joy, as we know these people understand the importance of regular chimney maintenance. This helps us build long-lasting, mutually beneficial business relationships with homeowners who like to stay safe.
If visitors somehow managed to stroll into your home right now, what’s the main thing you think they’d take note of? Maybe the scent radiating from your chimney was what crossed your mind; if so, don’t panic. This is a typical event for some property holders, one that is particularly predominant amid the hotter summer months. The uplifting news is help is close at hand. The experts from Chimney Sweeps West are here to help you.
The appropriate response here is a truly direct one: creosote. If you happened to depended intensely on your chimney this past winter and maybe utilized more wood than you’d at first arranged (some of which would not have been properly prepared), creosote could have buildup on the inward walls of your fireplace’s chimney. These deposits, when joined with the additional water in the air that is noticeable all around this season of year, can emanate a completely disagreeable fragrance. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about whether you’re the main individual who needs to manage this issue, we hope you can discover some comfort in realizing this is a typical occurrence that chimney clients have been managing for quite a long time! It’s part of the long term care that goes into your chimney.
Creosote odors tend to linger. They saturate your smokestack’s permeable stone work and never seem to dissipate. In any case, you can try to treat the issue to help prevent yourself, your family, and your visitors from being driven out by the stench. The professional crew at Chimney Sweeps West can come out, investigate your chimney to guarantee that the main issue is the creosote, and clear out the deposits causing the odor. Having your chimney cleaned every year is a flat out must on the off chance that you intend to make full utilization of your chimney when the climate turns icy!
Perhaps you’ve had your fireplace legitimately cleaned and yet have found scents every now and then, you could likewise be having a draft issue. The dominant part of older fireplaces were built with throat-mount dampers. Their metal-on-metal construction is their downfall with regards to keeping the odor inside the fireplace. Since they can’t be completely closed when the chimney is not being used, some scent can be smelled through the opening (regardless of how little it might show up) as outside air is constrained down your smokestack. Since there’s no fire going in the chimney to make an updraft, the air has an easier time moving into your home.
As should be obvious, chimney clients around the globe battle with rancid smokestacks, particularly amid the summer months. The professionals here at Chimney Sweeps West are here to help moderate this issue (and in addition whatever other issues you may have) for you. We urge you to get in touch with us at your soonest accommodation to plan an appointment so you can come back to making the most of your scent free living space.
Having a nasty smell coming from your chimney is NOT something you want to wake up to on a warm summer day. Even when you aren’t using it, your chimney can cause your house to smell. The main culprit is usually creosote buildup, but there are a few things to consider when it comes to foul chimney odors.
Most chimney odor simply smells a bit like smoke. That’s because the smoke leaving your chimney causes buildup of creosote and soot over time. This residue will have a tendency to buildup faster if you use woods in your chimney that don’t burn as well.
To delay creosote buildup in your chimney, it’s always best to stick to well-seasoned hard woods. But even when using the right kinds of firewood, your chimney will still need a cleaning from time to time.
Apart from creosote and soot buildup, however, there are things that can cause your chimney to smell bad. And in some cases it won’t smell like smoke at all.
Cases where your chimney might smell bad for reasons other than creosote buildup include:
Those are the main chimney odor problems you can expect that don’t have anything to do with creosote buildup. However, by keeping your chimney safer, even these problems can be eliminated.
It’s worthwhile to mention that keeping your chimney as dry as possible can go a long way in preventing bad odors. Anything from debris to creosote will smell worse if it gets wet.
The best way to fix your chimney odor problems is by first identifying the cause. You can do this by calling a professional chimney sweep to do an inspection. Here at Chimney Sweeps West, we have many years of experience in helping our customers fix and prevent chimney problems, so be sure to call us if you’re in Knoxville and you need help with your chimney.
Preventing chimney odor is actually surprisingly easy. One of the first things you can do to prevent bad odors from entering your home through your fireplace is to ensure that your chimney stays clean. You can do this by having you chimney cleaned and inspected once a year, preferably before winter so you know that it’s safe to use before making a fire.
Apart from this, you should do your best to keep debris and animals out of your chimney. Anything that gets into your chimney is not only likely to cause bad chimney odors, it’s also a fire hazard. Debris or bird’s nests in your chimney can light on fire easily, causing a problem that’s way worse than just a foul smell.
To prevent anything from getting into your chimney, you should have a proper chimney cap installed. The chimney cap will prevent some debris from getting into your chimney, but more importantly, it’s meant to keep water out. Keeping water out of your chimney will help so that any creosote buildup that might be present doesn’t get wet. This helps mainly because creosote smells worse when it’s wet. Apart from that, the cap will help keep water out to prevent mold from growing in your chimney.
To keep animals out, you should go for a chimney cap with a net.
Your chimney might smell because of drafts coming into your home through the chimney. Ideally, air should actually move out of your home through the chimney rather than entering your home. But sometimes the drafts don’t flow right, causing air to enter your home through the chimney.
Keeping the windows open might help for this problem somewhat. Other than that, having your chimney cleaned regularly can help a lot for this problem too.
If you recently repainted your burning stove, allowing the fireplace to burn for short intervals of time while keeping the windows open can help with chimney odors. Freshly painted or polished burning stoves have a tendency to smell rather bad for a while after being repainted, which might be another cause of foul odors from your fireplace.
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With a hotter climate in the forecast, your chimney is most likely one of the last things at the forefront of your thoughts at the present time. In any case, the warmth and dampness of summer can make certain things inside your smokestack discharge strong and unsavory scents, which can wind up inside your home through the chimney.
Like any other part of your home, your chimney needs care every once in a while. Many homeowners don’t give their chimney much thought. They just allow it to deteriorate and accumulate dirt. But eventually this kind of neglect can prove to be a serious health hazard. Your chimney can get damaged in a variety of ways – one of the more common ways being cracks in the chimney. But you should also have your chimney checked for water damage. As water damage can be very harmful to your chimney.
If your chimney isn’t properly waterproofed, it won’t be safe to use. Water damage can cause a lot of problems with your chimney. That’s because large parts of your chimney are made from materials like steel, which will rust if it’s exposed to water.
If you never have your chimney inspected, now would be a great time to get in touch with a local chimney sweep service. Professional chimney sweeps will be able to check for any water damage in your chimney. If there’s damage, it’s always best to locate the source of the problem and have it fixed. Once you’ve fixed the source of the problem, you can have your chimney fixed without having to worry about your fixed chimney getting damaged again by the same source of water damage.
Water damage to your chimney can cause your damper to rust, as well as potentially causing problems with water penetration in your walls. If that’s the case, you might even see mold grow on your walls near the fireplace, and the wallpaper of paint might lift because of the dampness in the wall.
Mold in your house is terrible for your health, so it’s always best to have any problems fixed that can cause your walls to rot.
Mold is primarily linked to respiratory problems. So if you or one of your loved ones suffer from asthma, or if you tend to have other problems, like coughs, wheezing or a stuffy nose, mold is a likely culprit in your home.
For people who are more allergic to it, mold can also cause skin problems like rashes. Needless to say, the health problems associated with mold in your home is no fun.
To prevent mold from growing in your home, you should have any leaks – like roof leaks or broken pipes fixed as soon as possible. If your chimney is the problem, then you’ll be able to fix the problem by calling a chimney sweep and having your chimney fixed.
It’s important that you have any leaks fixed as soon as possible, as leaving them could cause your walls to get soaked, leading to more water damage than if you had the problem fixed soon after it was discovered. Once you walls, chimney and roof have water damage, the wet parts (or the badly rusted bits) will all have to be replaced. You can’t leave any area of your walls wet and hope that it will dry out, as you’re leaving a potential breeding ground for more mold to grow. And once the mold starts to grow again, it can be very difficult to control.
Things you can do to prevent mold from growing in your home include:
The health problems associated with mold might seem insignificant to you, but mold-related allergies shouldn’t be taken lightly. Your respiratory system is a vital part of your health, and chronic exposure to mold can take its toll on your health.
Apart from this, your house is likely to smell damp and unpleasant if you leave water damaged areas without fixing them promptly.
Let’s face it, you don’t want to think about winter yet. It feels like things are only just starting to heat up, so why worry about the winter? There’s still a lot of time before then.
Fact is, springtime is great for getting your chimney inspected before winter this year. That’s because it’s the ideal season to do all kinds of outdoor maintenance tasks. The temperature isn’t too extreme, which often helps for certain parts of the maintenance work.
Getting your chimney inspected in spring also allows a lot of time before winter, so if there are still problems after your chimney is fixed, there will be time to get your chimney ready before winter.
Remember to use a chimney cap to avoid water damage through your chimney. Chimney caps are also great for preventing birds from making nests in your chimney. This is very important because the nests can actually catch fire whenever you use your chimney, and this can lead to a chimney fire.
Apart from this, you should have your chimney inspected annually to see that it’s still ready for each coming winter. Chimney inspections from professional sweeps aren’t cheap, but your chimney has a very important role to play in keeping your house safe. Without the proper care, it’s better to refrain from using your chimney, as you can never be too safe when working with any area in your house that uses fire.
Finally, things are heating up again! Now that the weather is improving, it’s a great time to think about maintenance tasks that need to be done before things start cooling down nearing the end of the year once more. Your fireplace worked hard all winter long, so one of the maintenance tasks on your spring to-do list should definitely be a chimney inspection. Because of the lovely weather conditions in spring, it’s one of the best times to get an exterior chimney inspection.
In all honesty, there isn’t one single time of year that’s best for getting your chimney cleaned and inspected, but some seasons are better than others. Regardless of what time of the year it is, however, you should always have your chimney inspected as soon as possible if:
To be safe, you should have carbon monoxide sensors installed in your house. Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odorless gas that happens to be reasonably similar to carbon dioxide in chemical structure. But while carbon dioxide is naturally abundant in the atmosphere, breathing in carbon monoxide can be fatal.
This is because your red blood cells have to ability to chemically bond with oxygen (O), carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). But while bonding with oxygen and carbon dioxide helps your red blood cells transport oxygen throughout your body, bonding with carbon monoxide actually does the opposite. When your red blood cells bond with carbon monoxide, you effectively suffocate, as your body will no longer be getting the oxygen it needs.
Here’s the catch, though. It won’t feel like you’re suffocating. The primary symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning through inhalation are simply feeling light headed, dizzy, or tired. People who die of carbon monoxide poisoning often just fall asleep to never wake up again.
If you often feel more light headed or tired when you’re in the same room as your fireplace, your fireplace might be leaking CO into your home. The best way to know for certain that your fireplace is safe is to install CO sensors, because humans can’t smell, see or detect CO without the proper technology to do so. But having your chimney inspected, cleaned and repaired regularly should significantly reduce the risk of CO leaking into your house through the fireplace.
Unfortunately, many people aren’t aware of the dangers of CO poisoning, making it a silent killer.
As stated above, when it comes to chimney inspections, it’s always better to play on the safe side. That said, for practical reasons, some seasons tend to be better for chimney inspections than others.
Spring and summer are perfect for chimney inspections. During these warm seasons, it’s easier to fix any problems that a professional chimney sweep might identify.
For instance, your chimney might be getting water damage from a roof leak. Before you can have your chimney fixed, you should have your roof repaired to avoid future water damage to your chimney. However, winter (or any particularly cold time of the year) isn’t the ideal time to work on your roof.
If you wait till winter for a chimney inspection, you might learn that your chimney isn’t safe to use, but that the work required to fix it should preferably wait till spring.
This will mean that you’ll have to go through winter without using your fireplace, which will probably a bit chilly. Winter is generally less pleasant than springtime and summertime, so not even having the opportunity to snuggle up in front of your fireplace with hot chocolate or a book seems rather dreadful.
But when it comes to the safety of your chimney, you can’t really take any chances. Using your fireplace when your chimney unsafe can literally cause you to burn down your house. While you can try other heating alternatives, you can’t replace your house once it’s burned down, so be sure to be safe rather than sorry. If your chimney is unfit, don’t use your fireplace before your haven’t fixed it.
Don’t neglect having your chimney inspected by a professional. While you can attempt to clean your own chimney, professional chimney sweeps are specially trained and know what to look for during inspections. So while there’s nothing wrong with cleaning your own chimney on a regular basis (assuming you know how to), you should still have it inspected annually by a chimney professional.
Chimney inspections are important, but unfortunately there are fake chimney sweeps who try to scam people. Most often, these people will require large upfront payments, but they’ll never even come back to look at your chimney.
Ask your chimney sweep about any special training they have. Many chimney sweeps are registered with the Chimney Safety Institute of America, or other official organizations that regulate chimney safety in the US.
But as long as the company sweeping your chimney is a real business, you probably won’t be scammed, so avoid hiring a chimney sweep who doesn’t work for a business that seems real. An online presence, or brick and mortar location both indicate that you’re working with real professionals.
Not sure where to find chimney sweeps in Knoxville, TN? Feel free to book an inspection with Chimney Sweeps West.
Spring is an awesome time for spring cleaning and yard upkeep, however that isn’t all. This spring keep your fireplace in mind. Regardless of whether it need repair or it simply needs a little cosmetic touch up this year, spring is an incredible time for these repairs.
To begin with, spring begins the off-season, which implies chimney sweeping companies are less occupied and clients have more opportunity to calendar repairs.
Second, by planning your repair in the spring, the repair doesn’t interfere with the standard utilization of your chimney and fireplace. Contingent upon the degree of the harm, a repair can be a torment amid the icy months, since chimney cleaners require a cool chimney and fireplace to work, for their wellbeing, and an intensive clean.
Fundamentally, the parts of the chimney that are outside the house make up the outside fireplace. At the point when the crown, masonry, flashing, or chimney cap need supplanted or repaired, you require outside fireplace repair. These repairs are best done in decent climate, so it doesn’t intrude on your stack utilize, and it’s additionally simpler for your CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep® (CCS) to make these repairs in pleasant climate.
Some outside fireplace repairs might be restorative repairs. On the off chance that you are putting your home up for sale, or have quite recently procured it, you may plan a restorative repair. Chimney Sweeps West of Knoxville works in stone work repairs that are enduring and wonderful! Our group can expertly repair your stack to reestablish its excellence, its proficiency, and its security. Regardless of whether you require minor mortar repairs, brickwork, or remedial stone work, Chimney Sweeps West is the group to call. We can even evacuate years of residue and grime development from your stone or block!
Tuckpointing is required when the mortar between the blocks is broken, eroded, or generally harmed by water or bugs. It’s the procedure by which the mortar is painstakingly evacuated and new mortar is pressed in. Tuckpointing is to a great degree precarious in light of the fact that the mortar ought to be coordinated in shading, organization, and quality or it will really exacerbate matters, both structurally and aesthetically. Chimney Sweeps West has mortar-coordinating down to a science!
Block re-confronting is required when the blocks start to spall or lose confronting. The fireplace clear expels blocks independently, and replaces them. Chimney Sweeps West attempts to ensure the completed item mixes flawlessly with the first stone work.
Another regular exterior chimney issue is a leaning chimney. It can be brought on from different basic issues, poor development, or cataclysmic events. Chimney Sweeps West is knowledgeable about stack reclamations and revamps and can work with property holders to make something standard or extraordinary for your home.
Now that things are warming up a little, it’s time to take a look around your house. There are probably quite a few maintenance chores you put off during the winter. One area that you should pay special attention to is your chimney and fireplace. Your chimney probably worked hard throughout the winter, so you should check that it didn’t sustain any damage.
The good news is that your chimney is probably in an okay condition. If you were still using your fireplace all throughout the cold months without any problems, chances are your chimney isn’t badly damaged.
So why have your chimney inspected if it’s still okay?
For starters, a chimney inspection includes a chimney cleaning. If you’ve been regularly using your fireplace, there’s a good chance that your chimney is full of soot and other buildup. Apart from that, having your chimney cleaned will help the professional chimney sweep to clearly see what’s going on. If there are any cracks that formed in your chimney due to overheating, for instance, you can have them fixed before they have any time to spread further.
Even if your chimney is still in tiptop shape, it needs to be cleaned regularly to keep your fireplace safe. A dirty chimney will leak more smoke and harmful gases into your home than one that’s been properly cleaned. So if you found that you had a problem with smoke leaking into your house this winter, it’s definitely time to have your chimney swept.
You can call a professional to sweep your chimney any time of year. There isn’t a specific time of year when you can’t have your chimney swept.
That said, when exactly you have your chimney inspected might depend on a couple of things. If you have your chimney inspected once a year, then obviously you’ll always have it inspected more or less at the same time each year. If you don’t regularly clean your chimney, the best time to call a professional is any time before using it again.
If you normally clean your chimney yourself, you should still have it inspected from time to time just to make sure it’s in good shape. Don’t assume your chimney is safe to use just because you cleaned it. Unless you aren’t a professional chimney sweep, there’s a good chance you might have left some dirt. And even if you got all the dirt, you might not know how to spot and fix cracks.
As mentioned before, it’s always best to have your chimney inspected and cleaned by a qualified chimney professional. But how will you know who to trust?
Your safety depends on finding a chimney sweep that knows what they’re doing. In the same way you wouldn’t have your car services by just any mechanic, or you wouldn’t have anyone tamper with your home’s electric connections, you shouldn’t trust anyone with your chimney.
Before allowing someone to work on your chimney, ask about what certifications they have when it comes to the work they do. The Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) offers a certification program for chimney sweeps. Ideally your chimney sweep should be certified with the CSIA, or a similar organization.
While the work chimney sweeps do is vitally important to your health and safety, there’s no standard requirement someone must fulfill to work as a chimney sweep. This means that anyone could sell themselves as a chimney sweep, even if they know nothing more about chimneys than you do!
That’s why the CSIA and similar organizations have set out to standardize the industry. These organizations recognize the importance of having a well-maintained chimney when it comes to fire safety.
Keep in mind that the best chimney sweeps won’t necessarily be cheap. But don’t be fooled into hiring someone who isn’t a professional just because they’re cheaper. Often times, the cheapest sweeps won’t even clean your chimney. Unfortunately there are many chimney sweep scams out there, where a sweep will require you to pay for an inspection upfront only to disappear without a trace.
So when choosing a chimney sweep, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
What should be clear, is that taking good care of your chimney is as important for practicing good fire safety as being safe while using your fireplace is.
Are you located in Knoxville? If so, feel free to call us! Here at Chimney Sweeps West are ready to help. With multiple standard levels of inspection, our professional team will help ensure your chimney is ready to go through another winter safely.
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