Chimney Repair in Rohnert Park, CA

Most Rohnert Park homes were built between the 1960s and the 1980s, and a large share of them have factory-built metal fireplaces rather than full masonry chimneys. That was not a defect and they were a perfectly good product, but they were never designed to last indefinitely, and a lot of them are now forty or fifty years old.

What we find: rusted-through fireboxes, warped or missing baffles, corroded chase covers letting water into the framing, and damaged chimney caps and spark arrestors allowing embers out and birds in. Once a metal firebox has rusted through, it cannot be patched. It has to be replaced, and it is genuinely unsafe to keep using in the meantime.

The good news is that a failing prefab is often the moment to get a better fireplace than the one the builder installed. Both gas fireplace installations and wood stove installations are straightforward in a home of this age.

With an ageing prefabricated fireplace, the honest answer is sometimes that repair is not worth it. A replacement unit in a sound chase will usually outlast a patched forty-year-old firebox and burn far more efficiently, and we will tell you when that is the case rather than selling you a repair twice.

If you would rather change the look as well as the hardware, fireplace refacing is often less expensive than homeowners expect.