March 2018 - Atlas Chimney

Spring Is the Perfect Time for Cleaning Your Chimney

As we say goodbye to winter, the first thing on many homeowners’ minds is preparing a spring cleaning plan. Atlas Chimney would like to remind you to include your chimney on the list of home maintenance tasks. We want to share with you why it is so important to schedule your annual professional chimney sweeping and inspection appointment with us in the spring as well as what you can expect from our maintenance services.

Why is it so important to have my chimney cleaned in the spring?

After a season of heavy usage, your chimney may have sizable amounts of creosote accumulated on its inner walls. A natural compound that develops during combustion, creosote is problematic because it leads to unpleasant odors invading your home. It also creates a dangerous fire hazard in your chimney. Creosote is so flammable that the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) names it as a leading cause of chimney fires. It is equally as important to have your chimney professionally inspected in the spring to make sure there are no water leaks that could lead to masonry damage. You want to protect your chimney from water penetration to prevent the deterioration of the bricks and mortar joints.

What can I expect from a professional chimney maintenance appointment with Atlas Chimney?

Our chimney sweeps are trained and certified by the CSIA, which means you can trust them to be skilled, honest, and professional when they visit your home. We begin this maintenance service by laying down drop cloths around your hearth area to protect the flooring. We use specialized tools, including a high-powered vacuum and rotating brushes, to ensure we remove all creosote and soot. During this sweeping, we will also remove any blockages in the flue to allow the chimney to exhaust safely. After your chimney sweeping, we examine the outside of your chimney to see if there is any masonry damage or deterioration. We also provide you with photographs of any damage and a written estimate of the necessary repairs.

Be sure to include your chimney in your home spring cleaning plan. Contact us today at Atlas Chimney to schedule your appointment for your annual professional chimney maintenance services with our CSIA-certified chimney sweeps.

March Means Chimney Swifts

One of the first signs of spring is hearing birds chirping in the morning. Although you usually hear this sound from outside your home, you could also hear it inside your chimney, especially if you do not have a chimney cap professionally installed on its top. Now that March has arrived, it is time for the return of chimney swifts: a species of a migratory bird that is so notorious for nesting inside chimneys that it is named after them. If you think you may be sharing your home with chimney swifts, unfortunately, you will have to wait until October for them to migrate back to their winter home in South America. These birds are protected by federal law under the Migratory Birds Treaty Act, which means that the chimney sweeps at Atlas Chimney cannot remove these birds from your flue. However, we can keep them from coming back to nest in your chimney next spring. We would like to tell you more about chimney swifts and how we can help prevent them from getting into your chimney.

Why do chimney swifts like to nest inside chimneys?

Years ago, chimney swifts typically nested inside tall, hollow trees, but as more and more of them are cut down for farmland and real estate development, these birds begin using chimneys as their preferred nesting spots. Not only can it be annoying to hear baby birds chirping frequently inside your home, it can also be hazardous, especially if you have a metal flue inside your chimney, according to The Humane Society of the United States. Chimney swifts have a difficult time gripping to metal, and they can easily become stuck and even slip and fall to their deaths inside your chimney. Therefore, it is important to prevent these birds from ever getting inside the flue.

How can Atlas Chimney help me keep chimney swifts out of my chimney

The best way to make sure a family of these birds does not spend spring and summer inside your home is to have a chimney cap professionally installed on top of the chimney. Atlas Chimney can show you a wide variety of caps that are equipped with mesh metal sides that do not allow birds, squirrels, raccoons, and other wild animals to get inside the chimney. Once you have selected the right cap for your chimney, our certified and experienced chimney technicians will make sure it is properly installed to best protect your home from invasions of critters.

Not only does a chimney cap keep chimney swifts and other wild animals out, it also prevents water from getting into your chimney. Contact us at Atlas Chimney today to schedule an appointment for our professional installation services.

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