Chimney Repair in Santa Rosa, CA

In the older parts of the city, around the McDonald Avenue historic district, the Junior College neighbourhood and Railroad Square, you are mostly looking at brick laid between about 1900 and the 1930s. Eroded mortar joints, cracked crowns and unlined flues are the usual findings. A good number of those chimneys have also been moved by decades of small earthquakes, which puts them into structural fireplace repairs territory.

Then there is everything rebuilt after the 2017 Tubbs fire. Those houses are only a few years old and owners reasonably assume there is nothing to check. Mostly that is true. What is worth checking is the chimney caps and spark arrestors, because a new home in a fire-rated area still needs an intact screen, and the chase covers on newer prefabricated units are usually the first part to give trouble.

In between sits a large stock of 1950s to 1980s housing whose factory-built fireplaces are now reaching the end of a normal service life.

Santa Rosa is where we get busiest, and the pattern repeats every year. The first properly cold week arrives, everyone lights a fire for the first time since spring, and the phone does not stop. If something about your fireplace has been nagging at you, late spring and summer are the quiet months.

Not sure whether what you have noticed matters? Describe it to us over the phone. A chimney inspection is a short visit and it settles the question either way.