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WHY CHIMNEY INSPECTIONS ARE IMPORTANT
Several individuals started their own companies that did nothing but inspect chimneys. Existing chimney sweep companies began to focus more and more on the inspection aspect of their business. Contractors like Boston Brick & Stone began to charge for the inspections as more and more people wanted to know if their chimneys were safe to use. Immediately after the Northridge earthquake the Building and Safety departments were overwhelmed with inspection requests. To solve this they started a program where licensed contractors could become “certified” to pull a permit and repair a chimney without the normally required city inspections. After the job was complete the contractor received a sticky “foil” certificate that was to be placed inside the electrical panel box. This “foil” certificate had a number on it and attested to the fact that a permit was pulled. This program was a dismal failure and was discontinued in December of 1994 after several chimney fires ensued on the newly repaired chimneys. We still run into these chimneys today and although they may look fine on the outside the usual is a horror story within the chimney itself. Even though chimneys were required to have inspections after December 1994, not all inspectors understood the City supplied detail, which the repair was based on. If the city inspectors had a difficult time with the detail the usual General Contractor was seldom anywhere close to what the detail demanded. Boston Brick & Stone was called in on numerous chimneys that were abandoned by General Contractors who were not familiar with the detail or even basic chimney repairs. We finished some but mostly we had to take them down and start again. Then there are the chimneys repaired by unlicensed contractors who were riding the boom wave of earthquake repair in the few years after the Northridge quake. These unscrupulous con men would lie and make the repairs without permits or inspections. The mistakes made by these guys would be amusing if they weren’t so dangerous. You name it, we’ve seen it. And just when we thought we could say we have seen it all another chimney comes our way that defies all logic. In addition to the dangers an uninspected chimney represents, there are the financial liabilities of buying a property that has an unsafe or damaged chimney attached to it. Whenever I am faced with a potentially dangerous situation I habitually seek the advice of known professionals in that particular field. For example, there is the advice of several firemen who told us they do not leave their homes for any long period of time with their appliances plugged in. They have seen more fires start by faulty electrical appliances than any other single cause. I follow that rule and not long after adopting that policy I ran into a customer who lost his home and all of his possessions because the transformer on his fish tank pump caught on fire while he was on a family vacation. I am a professional in the chimney industry and I can say with complete certainty that I would never buy a house anywhere, especially not in earthquake country, without a thorough examination of the chimney. More and more real estate professionals are opting to have the chimney inspected before the property is listed so they won’t be presented with any surprises. The only thing worse than finding out there is a $10,000.00 chimney problem after the price of the home has been accepted is being dragged through litigation by the eventual buyer after they discover the problem.
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Back in the early 1990’s Boston Brick & Stone inspected and provided estimates to repair chimneys free of charge. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake we, like every other competent licensed contractor, were overwhelmed with estimate requests and work orders. Even though we expanded to meet the demand we were unable to keep up and in the next few years that followed, the chimney inspection industry developed here in Southern California.
Serving the Los Angeles area.