If you’ve an open fire or stove, a chimney makes up an essential part of your building’s structure. This is not only for aesthetics, but more importantly, for health, safety, and efficiency.
Chimneys allow smoke, fumes, or other dangerous gases to be safely exhausted from your home when you light your fire or stove. They also ensure that the fire or stove functions correctly and burns safely, correctly, and efficiently.
If you’re using a chimney with any form of fire, it needs to be in full working order. If not, it could potentially be very dangerous. This is why it’s so important to maintain your chimney and keep it in a perfect state of repair.
As with most things in life, prevention is the best cure and to keep your chimney working as it should you need to know what to look for and how to spot any potential issues before they get worse.
Here’s a look at how to spot common chimney issues and tackle them DIY.
How to Spot Common Chimney Issues
To begin with, we’re going to look at a few ways in which you can spot common chimney issues nice and early, before they get worse.
Look and Smell for Signs of Smoke
As the saying goes, where there’s smoke there’s fire, which is exactly what a chimney is for. When you light a fire, the chimney provides a route for the smoke to escape. It essentially acts as an exhaust and exhausts all the smoke away and prevents it from making its way into the house. If your chimney is damaged, it won’t work as it should.
If you can see smoke making its way into the home, or if you can smell smoke in other rooms of the home, there’s a good chance that the flue within the chimney is leaking.
A leaking flue is a very serious issue and is very dangerous, so it will need to be resolved straightaway. Usually this is achieved by re-lining it.
Look for Signs of a Chimney Fire
When people think of chimney fires, they often assume that they’re always going to be dramatic, complete with billowing black smoke, sparks, and flames shooting out of the chimney. Now, with extreme chimney fires, this is what happens, but it’s also possible to have smaller chimney fires without even knowing.
When you have a fire, look at the smoke coming out of the chimney. Is it a typical blue/grey woodsmoke color or is it thick and dark? If it’s thick, dark, and persistent, this is likely caused by creosote within the chimney burning.
If the smoke smells sharp and acrid, rather than the usual woodsmoke you’re used to, this is another sign to be wary of. Again, this will need to be resolved immediately as it could result in a housefire.
Look For Signs of Damaged Masonry
Another tell-tale sign that your chimney is damaged and is in need of repair is when you begin noticing signs of damaged masonry.
Inspect the chimney itself as thoroughly as you can and look for any cracks or missing pieces of masonry. Check outside around the area and see if there are any lumps of brick or masonry that may have fallen off.
In the house, check the fireplace and look to see if there are any pieces of masonry that may have fallen down the chimney. If this has occurred, the masonry will need to be repaired, and the chimney will likely also need to be re-lined as well.
Watch for Smoke Entering the Room When Lighting the Fire
When you light your fire or stove, you want it to begin drawing immediately, where the smoke is pulled up and out of the chimney. The air pressure essentially needs to be sucking rather than blowing.
If you light your fire or stove, the smoke should be pulled up the chimney. If not, and it billows out and into the room, this could be a sign that the chimney is damaged or blocked and needs repairing.
Before lighting the fire, place your hand into the fireplace and see if you can feel air blowing onto it, if you can, this is a sign that it isn’t drawing as it should. Try opening a door or window to try to equalize the pressure. If this doesn’t work, your chimney may be blocked or damaged.
How to Tackle Common Chimney Issues Yourself
If you have identified a problem, or potential problems with your chimney, you may be able to tackle them yourself.
Here’s a look at a few DIY chimney repair tips you can follow.
Gather the Right Tools and Equipment
Before carrying out any type of DIY at home, it’s important to make sure that you have the correct tools and equipment. This most certainly includes safety equipment as well.
If you need to repair any brickwork for example, make sure you have things like cement, masonry trowels, mixing buckets, replacement bricks, ladders, and so on.
You’re going to need things like ladders, safety glasses, gloves, kneepads, breathing masks, flashlights, safety harnesses, buckets, hammers, chisels, and various other tools.
After identifying the problem, you’ll know what tools and equipment you’ll need. Make sure you have them to hand and the job will run a whole lot smoother.
Patch Up the Masonry
If you’ve inspected your chimney and have noticed how the masonry is chipped or missing in certain places, it may be possible to patch it up yourself.
If you can easily access the damaged areas of the chimney, gather the necessary repair materials and begin patching up the masonry yourself.
Once you’ve carried out the repair you can test it out.
Test with Smoke Pellets
After carrying out any repairs on a chimney, before you light your fire you should first make sure that the repair worked, and that there aren’t any other issues.
A lot of people make the mistake of lighting a fire to check. This is dangerous and is certainly not ideal, especially if the repair hasn’t taken. Instead, you should use smoke pellets.
When ignited, smoke pellets emit a non-toxic smoke for a relatively short duration of time. You can then track the smoke and see if it is escaping up and out of the chimney as it should. If there are any leaks, you should be able to see where the smoke is leaking from.
Leave it to the Pros
Finally, if you aren’t confident that you can resolve your chimney-related issues safely or efficiently, go ahead and hire a professional instead.
By hiring professionals, you know that the job will be taken care of promptly and effectively. The only real downside is that you’ll have to pay, but in the long run you’ll save a great deal of money anyways.