Chimney sweep, inspection and repair in Berkley

The houses

Walk a block off 12 Mile or Coolidge and the pattern is easy to see: one-and-a-half-story houses on narrow lots, most of them brick, many with the chimney running up an outside wall where you can see it from the sidewalk. Kitchens and bathrooms in these houses have usually been redone at least once. The chimney usually hasn't.

What we look at on a Berkley chimney

A brick chimney that has been through seventy or more Michigan winters tends to show its age at the top first: the crown, the top few courses of brick and the mortar joints between them. From the ground you might see nothing at all. From the roof, or through a camera, the picture can be different.

Houses from this era were often built with the furnace and water heater venting into the same chimney as the fireplace. When the furnace gets replaced, the way the house vents can change with it. So we check every flue in the chimney, including the ones that don't serve the fireplace.

A fireplace nobody has used in years

In a lot of older Berkley houses, the fireplace sat unused for years before the current owners moved in. If you don't know when yours was last cleaned or inspected, book a cleaning and inspection before the first fire of the season. You'll know what you're working with.

Keeping the look of the street

On a bungalow the chimney is short and close to the street, so its condition is part of how the house looks. When a Berkley chimney needs masonry work, we match the brick and the mortar color to what's already there, so the repair doesn't stand out from the sidewalk.

Buying a house in Berkley

A lot of Berkley houses change hands with the original chimney. If you're buying one, a Level 2 inspection covers the chimney areas in the attic and basement and puts a camera through the flue, which a general home inspection usually doesn't do.