Chimney Sweep in Glendale, CA

Frequently Asked Questions

My house is up in the Verdugo hills — does the spark arrestor get checked as part of a sweep?

It's the first thing we look at, before the flue. Hillside Glendale sits in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, so the screen over your flue is doing real work. We check that the mesh is intact, not rusted through, not clogged with creosote flakes, and that it's actually fastened down rather than sitting loose on the crown. On the older Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean homes, the decorative clay pots sometimes have an arrestor wedged in or wrapped around them in a way that was never a proper fit, and that gets flagged. If the screen is gone or corroded, we'll tell you straight and you can decide how to handle it.

There's a damp patch on the wall near my fireplace and the chimney is stucco — what's going on?

That's one of the most common calls we get in Glendale. A lot of chimneys here are stucco-clad chases or stucco over brick, and stucco hides water intrusion well past the point where it would be obvious on bare masonry. The usual entry point is the crown at the top — a cracked or undersized crown lets water run down inside the chase, and you don't see it until it shows up on drywall or as efflorescence near the firebox. We inspect the crown, the flashing and the chase top as part of a sweep and can tell you whether the moisture is coming from above or from a flashing failure at the roofline.

I keep seeing stair-step cracks in my brick chimney. Is that from the earthquakes?

Often, yes. Glendale's older stucco-over-brick stacks commonly show step cracking that traces back to 1971 and 1994, and the stucco skin can mask how far it goes. What matters is whether the crack is cosmetic in the stucco or whether the brickwork and the flue liner behind it have separated. We look inside the flue with a camera where access allows, because a displaced liner joint is the real hazard — that's how combustion gases get into wall cavities. An unlined or broken-lined masonry chimney on a 1920s or 1930s house shouldn't be burned in until it's been looked at properly.

What makes one Glendale sweep cost more than another?

The biggest factor is what's actually on your roof. A full masonry chimney on a hillside Tudor or Spanish Colonial with a decorative clay pot and a tall stack takes considerably longer than a prefab metal flue in a central or southern Glendale tract house or apartment unit, and steep roofs or hard hillside access add time too. Volume of creosote matters as well — if you've been burning most evenings December through February in the canyons and it's been a few seasons, there's more to remove. Prefab units are usually the quickest job of all. We can give you a realistic figure over the phone once we know the chimney type and how long since the last cleaning.