Five kinds of work
Chimney services in Plano
Almost every one of these starts with the same visit. An inspection tells you which of the other four you are actually looking at, and quite often the answer is none of them.
The five, and the order to think about them in
Chimney inspection and written report
A Level 1, 2 or 3 inspection to the NFPA 211 scheme, and a written report you can hold a quote against.
Read about inspection → 02Chimney sweeping and creosote removal
Brushing the flue back to bare masonry or liner, which on a lightly used Plano fireplace is as much about nests and debris as it is about soot.
Read about sweeping → 03Crown, cap and flashing repair
The three parts that keep rain out of a chimney, and the three that fail first on a thirty-year-old North Texas stack.
Read about crown & cap → 04Flue relining and firebox repair
Cracked clay tiles, spalled firebrick and failed refractory panels: the findings that turn an inspection into a real piece of work.
Read about relining → 05Gas logs, starters and venting
Gas work in the firebox is licensed work in Texas, and Plano amended the code with its own second shutoff valve rule.
Read about gas logs →Start from the symptom
What you noticed, and where it points
Chimney symptoms are unhelpfully generic. Almost everything shows up as a smell, a stain or a smoky room. This maps the common ones onto the work they usually turn out to be, so you have some idea what you are agreeing to before anyone arrives.
- A stain on the ceiling near the chimney breast. Water, and almost always from the top of the stack rather than the roof field. Start at crown, cap and flashing.
- White chalky deposits on the outside brick. Efflorescence, meaning water is moving through the masonry. Same page.
- Brick faces flaking or popping off in patches. Water that got in and then froze. On a city whose median house dates from 1994, the crowns and flashing that were supposed to keep it out are thirty years old, so this is the common end state rather than an unlucky one. Sometimes a rebuild of the top courses.
- Smoke coming into the room when you light a fire. Could be a blockage, a closed or seized damper, a smoke chamber problem, or simply house pressure. An inspection separates those; guessing does not.
- A soot smell on humid days with the air conditioning running. Deposits plus negative pressure in the house pulling air down the flue. Usually sweeping, sometimes a top-sealing damper.
- Chattering or scratching in the chimney in spring and summer. Very likely chimney swifts, which are federally protected and cannot be disturbed while nesting. Nothing happens until fall — see the sweeping page.
- You are buying a house that has a fireplace. Ask for a Level 2 inspection by name. A home inspection does not include a flue scan, and 73,397 of Plano's housing units are single-family detached houses, most of that stock built in one wave with a masonry fireplace as standard.
- The gas logs will not stay lit, or you smell gas. Gas first, chimney second. If you smell gas, leave and call the utility. Otherwise see gas logs, starters and venting.
- A previous company said the liner is cracked. Ask for the camera footage before agreeing to anything, then read flue relining and firebox repair.
The order things happen in
Why almost everything starts with an inspection
It is not a sales funnel. It is that the interior of a flue is invisible from the room and the top of a stack is invisible from the ground, so any quote produced without both being looked at is a guess with a number attached. The inspection also produces the one thing you keep: a dated document with photographs, which is what you hand a buyer's inspector in five years' time.
The honest version of this page is that a good proportion of Plano fireplaces need an inspection, a cap and nothing else. If that is what yours turns out to need, that is what the report should say.
Start here
Not sure which of the five it is?
Not knowing which of the five you need is the normal position to be in, and it is not something you should have to work out before asking. Describe what you noticed and the inspection will sort it into the right category, including the category where the answer is that nothing needs doing this year.
If you already have a report from another company, say what it found. A second opinion on a large finding is the cheapest insurance in this trade, and the way this site makes money is worth reading before you weigh what you read here.