Earliest Available (Location Dependent): TUES, JAN 7th
Home Heating Appliance Chimney Sweeping
Chimney sweeping is suspended throughout the winter months, pending frost and snow accumulation.
Access indoors to the heating appliance(s) is required; a clear path to and from the heating system and where appliance vent pipes enter the chimney base/thimble are also necessary to facilitate service. Personal effects and other items, which block and obstruct a pathway to the heating system, must be removed prior to arrival. Snow must be cleared off of walkways and driveways.
Heating system "red switches" are turned off, and water tanks are set to pilot; if an appliance fails to re-fire or turn on, the home owner must contact an HVAC specialist, as this is indicative of an appliance malfunction.
NOTICE TO HOME OWNERS: Mt Freedom Chimney is not a licensed plumber or certified HVAC specialist. Boiler, burner, and furnace repair are not provided services; plumbing and mechanical installations are also not provided. We do not perform oil-to-gas conversions. Pilot lights will not be relit.
After the heating appliance has been prepped, roof access is required for sweeping. Once swept, soot and other combustion byproducts are vacuumed and removed from the chimney base and thimble area before vent pipes are reconnected. Heating appliances are returned to their previous settings.
Violations in ICC IRC building code will be documented and disclosed. All invoices are remitted with line-by-line citations taken directly from the building code. Technicians may annotate the appliance(s) and chimney are "not suitable for continued use until necessary repairs are completed."
Insufficient work space: indoor access to the chimney breach and appliance(s) is required - no exceptions. Technicians will not remove and reorganize a customer's items and belongings. A cleared path to the heating appliance(s) with adequate room to work and to stage equipment must be arranged prior to arrival, otherwise a service charge will be issued, and the appointment canceled.
Heating system chimneys will not be serviced if the appliance is located in a dirt-floor crawlspace.
Certificates For Heating Appliances & Fuel Conversions
When:
1) converting a home-heating application from oil to gas,
2) replacing a furnace or a hot water tank,
3) installing a new heating appliance,
4) converting a wood fireplace to gas:
Licensed plumbers and HVAC/mechanical specialists are required to apply for permits for any fuel conversion and/or appliance replacement/installation (to include water tanks), and the municipality's building department will attach a "Chimney Verification Certificate" to the permit application.
If chimney relining is required, an additional permit for relining must be filed with your municipality's building department, as per N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.14; all permits require a municipal inspection to be closed.
Given the chimney is of masonry construction and the home was built prior to 2004, the chimney's interior flue lining will fail the inspection due to not meeting the criteria outlined in IRC Chapter 10 R1003.12. The chimney flue will require relining to satisfy all applicable plumbing, mechanical, and chimney building codes. Below is the excerpt from IRC Chapter 10.
Inspection and sweeping services do not automatically yield a passing certificate.
R1003.12 - Flue Lining Construction
The excerpt above is taken from the 2018 edition of the ICC's IRC building code standards for residential homes. In 2004, IRC Chapter 10 R1003.12 was amended to reflect that conventional cement could no longer be used as a jointing medium between each 2ft clay flue liner "tile" during masonry chimney construction, as conventional cement deteriorates with time and usage, allowing exhaust gases to vent through more porous areas of the chimney structure. Furthermore, grandfathering is not permissible, as this definition was deleted in 2018. A violation of this building code results in the chimney and its corresponding appliance(s) to be deemed unsuitable for use. There is no physical method to retrofit the proper, code-compliant high-heat refractory mortar to replace the conventional cement joints between every 2ft section of clay flue liner tile. Flue linings are a required part of chimney construction, regardless of the application, the appliances, and the age of a house.
Chimney "relining" is the standard repair solution when the above-mentioned building code is in violation. It is also the most commonly occurring chimney repair, being able to correct such issues as flue decay/deterioration, shifted/misaligned flue tiles due to settling, and absences of an original lining due to incorrect or predated home construction.
Emergencies
For Actual Life-Threatening Emergencies (Chimney Fires and Exhaust Spillage) Call 9-1-1
Mt Freedom Chimney is a one-person service company, and cannot accommodate same-day emergency services and evaluations. No one is in the office during daytime hours to take your call, which is why appointment requests are typically taken online, here on the company website. Depending on the time of year, the scheduling backlog could be one week (spring and summer) to over one month (from the fall throughout the holidays).
The two most common heating system chimney emergencies are appliance malfunction and interior masonry collapse. It's recommended to reach out to a larger, repair-based chimney company after first consulting with an HVAC professional or licensed plumber to diagnose your heating system. Most often, standard chimney sweeping is not the sole, problem-solving remedy. Dislodging a masonry collapse is a two-fold repair: opening access hole(s) somewhere on the chimney exterior to remove the full or partial obstruction(s), and installing a replacement chimney lining (permits are required). At best, MFC can only perform an inspection, and identify the issue, as significant repairs are more often beyond the scope and capabilities of the company, or due to seasonal snow/ice accumulation on rooftops. Regular and preemptive maintenance for heating systems and their chimneys (especially oil-fired appliances) should be performed annually, and during the off-season (spring through summer). Not just myself, but all other chimney service and repair companies are inundated throughout the fall and winter.
Stoves and inserts are supplement heating appliances which are not to take the place of fulltime gas, oil, or electric home-heating units. Fireplace usage causes a net-negative energy/heat loss for the house, and are purely decorative (fireplaces do not heat homes). New Jersey does not allow solid-fuel appliances to be declared as a main heat source (wood, coal, pellet).
Requesting expedited services, inspections, or repairs for wood-burning chimneys are not considered emergencies, and I would have to cancel on patient customers who have already been waiting several weeks for an appointment.
Do not use your open-face fireplace during power outages when heating appliances can't operate, as they produce a neg-negative energy/heat loss for your house. Fireplace usage pulls ambient air from other areas of the house from the last heating cycle, and exhausts it out the chimney, significantly reducing indoor temperatures.
From March to August, scheduling isn't nearly as high-volume as it is during the fall and holidays, and a technician might be able to be dispatched within one week's time; additionally, roof access is much more feasible, and roof-borne services can be performed. During the winter months, I will not access rooftops if there is snow, ice, or frost.
"Blockage" VS "Really Dirty"
Burning poor quality fuel and negligence of maintenance usually adds time and cost to the service of wood-burning applications. While difficult, it's not impossible to fully clean out. However, this section is dedicated to blockages for home-heating appliance chimneys, specifically oil-burning systems. Oil and gas fuel types don't remit creosote accumulation, which can clog up the interior flue lining like wood fuel does. Gas burns extraordinarily clean, and seldom has issues, unless it was previously converted from an oil-burning appliance.
There are two types of "blockages" associated with heating system chimneys: thimble obstruction and masonry flue collapse.
HORIZONTAL - While difficult to see, this is what the chimney base looks like once the appliance vent pipe is removed, allowing visual access inside. A mixture of oil soot and flaking flue tile clay piles up over time, and obstructs the exhaust flow. This is common with heating system chimneys where the appliance was converted or replaced from oil to gas.
VERTICAL - Looking from the bottom-up, a piece of clay flue tile broke, fell down, and became lodged. Unlike the ease of shoveling or vacuuming a soot pile obstruction at the chimney base, a lot of these mid-flue collapses can only be dislodged by opening an access hole on the exterior of the chimney, and requiring extensive repairs to restore to code.
MFC is unable to remove collapsed clay flue tile and masonry. Conventional chimney sweeping has no effect, and significant repairs are required.
All these examples require significant repair work in the form of chimney relining; where a stainless steel sleeve is inserted from the top, lowered down, and connected to the heating appliance.
Ineligible For Service
Converging Flues
Converging Flues
Converging Flues
All appliances must vent into their own, separate and compartmented flue. A wood-burning appliance, like a fireplace, can share a chimney with a heating system, but both cannot share FLUES, as this violates ICC IRC Chapter 18 (2018) M1801.11 and M1801.12.
Mixed Fuel Types
Converging Flues
Converging Flues
Specifically, when a solid-fuel appliance (wood, coal, pellet) is vented into the same chimney FLUE as home-heating appliances (oil, natural gas, propane), as this violates ICC IRC Chapters 18 and 24, and NFPA-211 and NFPA-54.
Roof Access
While not uncommon, stone caps are becoming more infrequent, due to no longer being permissible under building code (R1003.9.3). Free-standing wood stove and home-heating appliance chimneys with stone caps cannot be serviced from the roof with this type of cap configuration, and services will be retracted.
Temporary fan emplacement up top and/or the usage of a heat gun at the bottom are sometimes deployed to counter down-draft. A down-draft will stop me in my tracks due to soot spillage concerns. Plan accordingly for appointment rescheduling if your chimney has a down-draft you roof is snow-covered.
Roofs comprised of slate, Spanish tile, wood shake, metal, or roofs with solar panels will not be accessed due to safety and damage considerations. Slate and solar panels are fragile and expensive; excluding asphalt shingles, these listed roof types have poor traction, especially when slightly damp or wet.