Chimney Sweep in Chamblee, GA

Chimney Sweep for Chamblee Homeowners

Chamblee's residential core — Huntley Hills, Keswick Village, Sexton Woods — is largely 1950s and 1960s ranch, and the chimneys are honest, simple, single-flue masonry. There is nothing exotic to them, which is precisely why they get forgotten. The typical Chamblee call is a house that has been in one family for decades with a fireplace used steadily and swept once, twenty years ago, or a newer owner who has inherited that history. Sixty-year-old crowns are also right at the age where the original concrete has cracked through and started letting water into the stack.

1950s-1960s single-flue ranch masonry; original crowns now at the age where they crack through and admit water.

Wood smoke cools as it climbs, and what condenses on the way out is creosote — a black, tarry residue that hardens into a fuel lining the inside of your flue. Past about an eighth of an inch it will carry a fire, and a flue fire moves through a chimney in seconds. Atlanta makes this worse in its own way: nobody here burns steadily for four months, we burn hard for a fortnight in January and then abandon the fireplace until Thanksgiving. Cold masonry, damp masonry, smouldering fires and unseasoned oak all lay creosote down faster than steady daily burning would. Sweeping is the one piece of maintenance that removes the fuel rather than managing it.