Fireplace Inspection in Prospect Heights, IL

What Prospect Heights chimneys actually show us

Much of the village is postwar ranch and split-level. Low rooflines mean short stacks. Short stacks draft weakly. Open ground near Chicago Executive Airport lets wind hit them hard. Smoke rolls back when the furnace cycles. That is a pressure problem, not a dirty flue.

Prefab metal fireboxes sit in framed wood chases here. Get a look at the chase cover. Flat galvanized sheet, no slope. No drip edge either. Water ponds and the seam rusts through. Then it drips onto the damper. A rust-stained firebox floor is the tell from inside.

Masonry stacks fail differently. Many have a furnace or water heater sharing the clay flue. Look at the brick near the thimble. White chalky staining means condensing flue gas. Mortar there turns to sand. North and west faces spall first from freeze-thaw.

Unincorporated pockets around here sit on well and septic. Those houses went long stretches without permit review. We find clay tile never lined. We find sheet metal patched into the smoke chamber. Silver maples and oaks pack the cap screen with seed.

Plain judgment on scope: relining a sound stack is worth doing. Tuckpointing a stack that already leans or bows is not. At that point the brick comes down and goes back up. We will say so rather than sell patchwork.