Our Company Blog

How Often Should I Have My Chimney Inspected?

When owning a home with a chimney and fireplace system, it is the responsibility of the homeowners to have it professionally swept and inspected at least once a year. The Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and other national non-profit fire safety organizations recommend having you chimney professionally swept and inspected annually. This is one of the most important home maintenance as it is related to the safety of your family. For over 25 years, Atlas Chimney has provided quality professional chimney maintenance, which includes repairs and installation services to residents across the Austin area. You can trust our CSIA-certified chimney technicians to ensure your chimney is in top working condition and will remain safe and efficient throughout the year. Chimney inspection is vital, and we would like to tell you more about what you’ll expect from our professionals.

Why do I need to have my chimney professionally inspected?

The national chimney experts recommend every homeowner to schedule this particular professional maintenance service at least once a year to ensure there are no flue blockages or any other type of damages, which could lead to dangerous fire hazards or other problems. With Atlas Chimney, we include a basic Level 1 inspection with your annual chimney sweeping appointment. However, if you are buying or selling a home or if you have made any changes to your fireplace since your previous chimney inspection, then you will need a Level 2 inspection. Our Level 2 inspection includes the attic, basement, and crawl spaces around the chimney. This will also be the inspection required after an earthquake, tornado, lightning strike, chimney fire or other events that may have damaged the chimney. If you suspect any problems that need more extensive investigation, a Level 3 inspection would be recommended. This level requires the removal of components such as a wall of the chimney – in order to determine the source of the problem that could lead to a devastating house fire – if neglected.

What can I expect from a chimney inspection from Atlas Chimney?

When sweeping your chimney, our CSIA-certified professionals will be doing a courtesy check to ensure nothing is blocking the inner flue. We will also keep an eye out for any damages to the liner. Both of these issues could lead to a potential carbon monoxide leak into your home. After sweeping your chimney, we will inspect the condition of the bricks and mortar joints on the exterior of your chimney. If we do find any damaged or missing masonry, we will provide photographs of the damages in our inspection report along with an honest estimate of the repairs that will be needed to get your chimney back to working safely.

Take advantage of our less busy off-season right now! Contact us today to schedule your professional chimney inspection.

What to Expect From Your Chimney Sweep Appointment

When you own a home with a fireplace, you must keep up with maintaining the chimney to keep everything working efficiently and safely, and the most important maintenance task is scheduling an appointment for a professional chimney sweeping and inspection at least once a year. Recommended by the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and other national fire safety organizations, these chimney maintenance services ensure that your chimney system poses no problems that could lead to hazardous situations. Atlas Chimney is proud to offer these services to the residents of the Austin area. All of our chimney sweeps have been certified by the CSIA, which means you can trust their training and experience to do the best job possible. We get a lot of questions from our customers about what they can expect from their chimney sweep appointments, so we thought we would let you know more about these services.

Atlas Chimney will arrive at your home within the time window you were given when you made the appointment.

We know how busy you are, and we value your time. We will never make you wait around all day for us to show up to sweep and inspect your chimney; however, we cannot guarantee that we can be at your home at a specific, precise time. This is why we will give you a time window of our arrival when you make your appointment. We hope you understand how important this flexibility is to us. Sometimes when we are sweeping chimneys, we run into an unforeseen problem that must be addressed, and this can cause us to run behind schedule. This is why that time window is so important. We are professional chimney technicians, not pizza delivery drivers who are able to get to your house in 30 minutes or less.

Atlas Chimney will take every precaution we can to keep your home clean.

Before we start sweeping, we will place tarps and drop cloths down around your fireplace to protect the area from getting dirty from soot. We also set up special vacuums that will be running during the entire process to keep soot and creosote from even entering your home. After we are finished, we will be sure to leave your home even cleaner than it was when we arrived.

Atlas Chimney will ensure you are safe from the hazards of a chimney fire or a carbon monoxide leak.

When we clean your chimney, we take great care to be sure that we remove every bit of creosote from the inside of your chimney. The CSIA has named creosote as the main cause of chimney fires because it is so flammable. Your risk of experiencing this type of fire is greatly reduced after we have swept your chimney. As we inspect your chimney, we will also be sure that your chimney contains no blockages or damage that could force carbon monoxide back into your home.

If you have not scheduled your annual chimney sweeping and inspection this year, contact us at Atlas Chimney to set up an appointment. We guarantee to keep your fireplace and chimney working efficiently and safely.