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The house I'm looking at has a fireplace that may or may not work. Would a chimney sweep be able to tell me if the whether it works or not? what kind of work would have to be done to get it working? Does this mean it's been blocked closed? or collapsed?
Be very careful with chimney copanies. In my experience they all try to cheat you, telling you it will take thousands of dollars to fix. I had one guy come in, look at my chimney and tell me it would be $10,000 minimum. He didn't even get on the roof and look inside.
Get a few quotes, look for more established chimney companies that have been around for a long time. Or ask your local realtor, they may know someone.
Yes, a chimney sweep is the person to ask. As the poster above says, just as in any business, there are some who aren't honest, so get more than one bid.
Most fireplaces, even when working well, take more heat out of the room, than they put back.
I recently had a fireplace insert installed in my fireplace, which puts out 40k btu and heats most of the house without using the forced air unit. It's stated to be 87% efficient, compared to the builder installed unit wich rates at about 10% efficience.
It all depends on what your plans are for the fireplace. If you just want flames for looking at, and heat isn't an issue, you're probably fine as is. If you want heat, look into an insert.
The house I'm looking at has a fireplace that may or may not work. Would a chimney sweep be able to tell me if the whether it works or not? what kind of work would have to be done to get it working? Does this mean it's been blocked closed? or collapsed?
This is something I've never dealt with before.
help?!?!
if you needed, you can have a gas insert put in place, this would keep you from having to light wood every time you wanted a fire. I personally love wood burning fireplaces, but Quite a few jurisdictions do not let us put these in our designs anymore.
thank you everyone for the info. I'm actually terrified of fires, my mom's house burned down when she was a child, They lived in Michigan, and it was a turn of the century house, no furnace, heated by wood stove and fireplace. spark jumped out of the chimney and burned down from the roof....she's instilled that fear in me, but if there is one in the house, I want to make sure it's functional in case of power outages...heat and cooking. I remember one time in Atlanta when an ice storm hit, we had to use the fireplace for heat and cooking and she was a nervous wreck the entire 3 days....
I like the look of a fire, but they really terrify me.
Sounds like you probably won't be using it too much then. I would have a few companies come out and give you their evaluation on it and see if their stories and prices are similiar. We don't use ours a lot anymore because we have two young kids. The first year we were in the house though, I had a log shift in the fireplace when i was stoking the fire and the screen was open and a few chunks of embers made their way over the hearth and onto a brand new $700 carpet. Luckily there was no fire. We still have the carpet, but it took some months to get over the fact that I had ruined a brand new rug by not being careful! So things can happen, but I think a lot of times its user error or people who neglect to maintain their fireplaces.
Make sure you get a fireplace rug (non flammable) to put in front of the hearth - to prevent embers from ruining carpet or wood floors.
Make sure the chimney is sound - it the mortar is gone, or bricks have moved - a chimney sweep (or some other fireplace inspection company) can tell you -- if the chimney has deteriorated then it would not be safe to have a fire without either - repairing the chimney, or inserting a liner. A liner would be your more economical solution.
A properly maintained wood burning fireplace is wonderful - in my opinion nothing beats real flames, and the smell of wood burning.
Get a chimney sweep to come out. Try to find one that uses a camera they send down from the top. That way, they can tell you about the condition all the way down.
If the fireplace or chimney is not safe for a wood fire, do not let someone tell you it is OK to just install gas logs.
I'm also not a big fan of ventless gas logs, even though a lot of people just love them. When you use them, you should have a window open, or a supply of fresh air so carbon monoxide does not build up, and you have a good supply of combustion air.
Like someone else said, call a couple chimney sweeps and compare their findings. You can also check them out with BBB. They are not all crooks
Careful- chimney sweeps clean chimneys and are not necessarily masons.
Right now as I type this I am having my chimney torn down to the roof and rebuilt back up- the old mortar cap had cracked and caused freeze-thaw to split one side of the chimney like a banana peel.
A qualified mason will know how to repair a chimney correctly, and normally they are NOT sweeps. Huge difference.
The estimated cost to tear down, rebuild (including new clay liners down to the roof) is $1,500.
Years ago in Charles Town WV there was a 'reputable' chimney sweep that also did those poured in liners. Carmichael was his name. One year I had him come out to sweep my chimney and he came with this 'video' apparatus that took photos of the liner to inspect them.
He showed me footage of several tile liners that were waaaay cracked open, with Carmihcael claiming it was due to a chimney fire presumably from the previous owner (we hadn't lived there one year yet)
However I noticed that there wasn't any bleed through on the outside of the chimney, which is odd. If the liners cracked, wood gas creates salt and creosote which will bleed through to the brick, causing a discoloration that's usually very noticeable.
I had a mason come out (trying to get a second opinion on rebuilding the chimney because Carmichael's estimate was $10,000).
Guess what? The chimney sweep was full of crap. He used still video footage not of my chimney to try and bilk me out of some huge $$$.
No cracks, no fire damage- the chimney was a-ok.
The guy wound up getting charged with several counts of fraud, as he had done with this lot's of folks.
Always, and I mean always get a second opinion if someone tells you (or shows you with video) that your chimney is damaged.
I clean and check my own every year.
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fireplace
