Seasonal chimney, air duct and dryer vent guidance for Lockport and the southwest suburbs.
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. A fireplace looks like it will take anything that burns, which is exactly why so much gets fed into one. Working through our Lemont chimney service area, the flues in the worst shape are…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. When a homeowner in our Romeoville chimney service area is told the chimney needs a liner, the first sensible question is what is in there now. Most people have never seen the inside of…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Most of the fireplace safety conversation in our Joliet chimney and fireplace service area is about what happens inside the firebox. The problems that actually scorch floors and char mantels usually start outside it…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Glass doors on a fireplace get used wrong more often than almost any other part of the system. The short answer: with a wood fire burning, the doors should be fully open, not cracked…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Stand at the base of your chimney and look up with binoculars. If the mortar between the bricks has receded, gone sandy, or dropped out in chunks, you are looking at failed joints —…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. A damp, basement-like smell that shows up every time the blower kicks on is one of the most common calls we get in the first weeks of September. After a long humid stretch, the…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. When a wood stove gets installed in Frankfort, most of the attention goes to the stove itself. The part that actually decides whether the installation is safe is the black pipe running from the…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Behind almost every dryer in Mokena there is a short piece of duct connecting the machine to the wall. It is four or five feet long, nobody ever looks at it, and it is…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. There is a section of your chimney that almost nobody knows the name of, and it causes more smoking fireplaces in Bolingbrook than a dirty flue ever does. It is called the smoke chamber,…
By Daniel Watkins, Noble Chimney Sweepers. Every September we get the same question about gas fireplaces: the pilot light was shut off in the spring, so how do we get it going again, and was turning it off the right…
