Chimney Cleaning
You never use your fireplace. You might have transformed it into a stylish focal point of your living room, happily retired from use, painted, and refreshed. Or your fireplace might still be a fully functional one, but just happened to take a seasonal vacation and you haven’t actually lit a fire in it for quite some time. Whatever the case may be, the question remains: do you have to have it cleaned? The answer is an easy one. Yes!
More Than Décor—It’s a Part of Your Home’s Ventilation System
Even if you did transform your fireplace into a beautiful piece of décor, you still need to have it cleaned. It’s tempting to write off this chore if you don’t use your fireplace or haven’t used it in a while, but you’ll want to resist—and for good reasons.
Your chimney acts as a critical part of your home’s ventilation system. Getting it cleaned means you’re taking care of your house as a whole and ensuring the house is able to exhaust fumes properly and certain appliances can function and ventilate.
Critters, Nests, and Debris
A retired fireplace will still have a chimney. A chimney, despite not being in use, is still open at its top and exposed to the outer elements. Normally, dangerous combustion byproducts would travel up the chimney and be released outside to prevent fumes like carbon monoxide from billowing into your living spaces.
A chimney that’s not active still has that open top to the outside. Critters are known to make their homes inside a chimney and will settle in if one isn’t in use. Chimneys quickly become susceptible to nests, debris, animals, and animal droppings if they aren’t covered by a chimney cap and cleaned regularly.
According to the Chimney Safety Institute of America’s (CSIA) national safety standard, chimneys must be cleaned every year for cleaning maintenance, and repairs because “animals may build nests in the flue or there may be other types of deterioration that could make the chimney unsafe.” If you aren’t using the fireplace, your chimney is still very much at risk to this problem, and you’ll quickly notice it regardless of how much you use the fireplace because of the smell. It will also be hard not to hear the sounds of animals that have made their home within the chimney walls. If that’s the case, you’ll need to call a local animal rescue first before getting the chimney cleaned.
Masonry and Structural Spot-Checks
A chimney cleaning not only gets your chimney sparkling clean and free and clear of debris, a trained professional will also take a peek at its masonry. Because you can’t see inside the chimney, you don’t know if there are any cracks forming within the masonry. Structural issues can take formation and over time, they can worsen if ignored. A yearly chimney cleaning will investigate the interior of the chimney and repairs can be done if any concerns are discovered. An annual cleaning can save you on incredibly expensive repairs that can occur if the chimney is neglected.
Keep Other Appliances Healthy
If your home has a gas- or oil-fueled furnace, it likely uses the chimney for its exhaust venting, meaning all of those dangerous combustion byproducts like carbon monoxide burned by the furnace, and then channeled outside through the chimney. It’s because of this very function that makes the chimney an incredibly valuable part of your home. Of course, you’d want to get it cleaned so it can properly exhaust!
Modern high-efficiency gas furnaces produce fumes that contain high levels of water vapor. The presence of water vapor can cause condensation to form in these newer furnaces, which can subject the chimney flue to corrosion. If your home once had gas appliances that used chimneys as oil furnaces, the mixture of these water and gas vapors with oil deposits can lead to serious deterioration.
In these common scenarios, debris can quickly build up and block the chimney, posing many external and internal problems unbeknownst to a homeowner who doesn’t have their chimney regularly cleaned or inspected. If your chimney is terracotta lined, deterioration can happen more quickly due to the nature of the material—even if you aren’t using your fireplace.
A Clean Chimney is a Happy Chimney
As you can see, it’s better to pay just a little bit every year to have your unused fireplace and chimney inspected and cleaned than to face expensive and surprising repairs in the future. Just because the chimney is unused by you, doesn’t mean that animals haven’t made their homes inside. And with other appliances relying on the use of the chimney to properly exhaust, it’s certainly a good idea to keep this feature of your home regularly cleaned and inspected.
Learn more about chimney care. Ask the experts at Vertical Chimney Care.
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