Chimney Sweep in Waltham, MA

Yes, and it's one of the more common things we find in Waltham's older frame housing. A lot of those Victorian and early-1900s homes were built with a second flue for a coal or oil appliance that's long gone. The flue is still there, often with the old thimble opening patched over with something thin, and sometimes the clay tiles inside have cracked or dropped debris. An abandoned flue can pull air, let moisture in, or allow smoke to cross over into the living flue if the divider between them has broken down. We inspect both when we're there, even if only one is in service.

It depends heavily on when you call. September through early December is our busiest window, because everyone in Waltham decides at once that they'd like the fireplace working before the first cold nights, and being inland we get those a bit earlier than the coastal towns. In that stretch you should expect to wait a week or more for a routine sweep. Call in late winter, spring, or summer and it's usually a matter of days. If you've got smoke coming into the room, a chimney fire, or water running down the firebox wall, say so when you call and we'll treat it differently than a scheduled cleaning.

In Waltham this is usually the flashing at the chimney-to-roof junction, and it shows up after heavy snow sits and ice dams form along the eaves and around the chimney base. Meltwater backs up under the shingles and finds the seam where the chimney passes through. We can tell you whether the leak is coming through failed flashing, a missing or cracked crown, or porous brick absorbing water above the roofline. Being inland, salt isn't eating your masonry the way it does closer to the water, but freeze-thaw cycling does its own damage to mortar joints and crowns. A rain cap and sound flashing solve most of it.

Those postwar ranches and splits go two ways, and that's what moves the number. If you have a prefab metal firebox with a factory chimney, the work is relatively straightforward — there's less soot volume and fewer surprises, though we do check the panels and the chase top. If it's a masonry fireplace that was later fitted with gas logs, the job changes: the flue often hasn't been cleaned in years because nobody thinks a gas log dirties anything, and we frequently find debris, corrosion, or an improperly sized flue. Height, roof pitch, and how much creosote is actually in there all factor in. We'll tell you what we're looking at before we start.

Sometimes, mostly outside the fall rush and mostly when a cancellation opens up. During November through March, when Waltham fireplaces are running steadily, our days are usually spoken for. Genuine emergencies are a different conversation — if you've had a chimney fire, or you're smelling smoke in the house, don't light another fire and call us. We'll get to you as quickly as we can and tell you honestly if that's today or tomorrow rather than leaving you waiting on a maybe.