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Austin Chimney Cleaning
Exceptional Chimney Cleaning Services
For Your Safer, More Comfortable Austin Home
Having your chimney cleaned or swept by our team in Austin is an important part of your regular chimney maintenance cycle. At Wolfman Chimney & Fireplace, our well-educated, experienced team has the tools to get the job done and maintain your system in the best possible condition.
Chimney cleanings both help to improve your chimney and fireplace efficiency as well as protect your household when your chimney and fireplace system is in operation.
If you’re searching for the best chimney cleaning service in the Austin area, you can count on Wolfman as your trusted chimney care team. Give us a call or reach out to us online today.
"Our core belief is that true success comes from a balance of humility and confidence. We approach every challenge with the assurance of our skills while remaining open to learning and growth, ensuring we serve our clients with integrity and respect."
"Our core belief is that growth is essential for survival. We continuously innovate, adapt, and strive for improvement, believing that standing still means falling behind in a fast-changing world."
"Our core belief is always to help first. By prioritizing the needs of our clients and community, we build trust and long-lasting relationships, knowing that genuine service creates lasting value for everyone."
"Our core belief is always to do the right thing, even when it’s difficult. Integrity guides our actions, and we are committed to making choices that reflect honesty, fairness, and responsibility in every aspect of our business."
Are Chimney Cleanings and Sweepings the Same?
The terms are commonly used interchangeably, but in reality, it’s impossible to get your chimney back to completely clean again after it’s been used. However, a chimney sweeping service will keep creosote and any obstacles and debris at a minimum so that smoke escapes effectively.
Are Chimney Cleanings Really Necessary?
Chimney sweeps are an important, but often overlooked part of your chimney maintenance process, making it important for homeowners to schedule. It shouldn’t be a DIY job, as only a chimney professional should handle the task. Here’s why they’re important:
- Chimney cleanings help prevent fires. Creosote and other types of debris can build up in your chimney’s interior, raising the risk of a chimney fire. Chimney fires cause serious damage to your system and can put your home at risk.
- Chimney cleaning improves efficiency. When you have creosote and debris building up in your chimney’s interior, airflow restrictions begin to take place. This causes carbon monoxide, smoke, and dangerous fumes to enter your home, a life-threating situation.
- Chimney cleaning ensures safer air. Today’s homes are tightly sealed for efficiency, making indoor air quality important. A dirty chimney allows toxic fumes to build up, having a strong impact on your indoor air quality.
- Chimney cleanings reveal hidden damage. Once your chimney sweep is complete, your chimney professional will be able to spot hidden damage that was behind the creosote, debris, and soot, allowing necessary repairs to be handled.
- Chimney cleanings extend your chimney’s lifespan. Creosote and acids from burning wood can both create conditions for chimney fires as well as introduce acids that can eat away at your masonry work.
If your Austin area home needs a chimney cleaning, inspection, maintenance, or repairs, we’ve got it covered. Get in touch to book an appointment and you’ll be able to rest easier knowing you’ve got a safe, comfortable fireplace. If repairs are needed, we can handle those for you too.
Can I Clean My Own Chimney?
A CSIA-Certified chimney professional should always handle your chimney cleaning. Though there are kits and products in home improvement stores that claim otherwise, it’s important to realize the role that experience and training has in the chimney sweeping process, the lack of which can lead to damage and oversights.
A chimney professional understands where to look for creosote buildup, how to remove debris without damage, and how to reach the entire interior of your chimney. They’re also able to inspect your flue while reporting any needed repairs or issues that could put your household at risk.
Is creosote combustible?
Formed when wood is burned, creosote is a tarry substance that is highly flammable. The more that’s in your chimney, the higher chances it’ll ignite. If you’re like most homeowners, you want to know how to prevent it from forming. Though this is impossible, you can use strategies to reduce its rate of accumulation.
- Burn only seasoned firewood. All firewood that you use needs to be properly cut, split, and dried for a minimum of six months. This is because additional moisture makes your fire burn coolly, depositing more creosote in your chimney.
- Build hotter, cleaner-burning fires. Seasoned wood burns hotter and cleaner, as it doesn’t have to burn off the moisture. We also recommend avoiding softwood, which can burn quickly, but the rapid heating and cooling cycles cause more creosote to deposit.
- Warm up your flue. Before starting a fire, begin the process by warming up your flue first. This improves draft and encourages smoke to move more quickly through your chimney, reducing creosote buildup.
- Encourage airflow and draft. Having good airflow ensures that your fire will continue to move smoke up the chimney and out of your home. Poor airflow keeps the smoke from moving up your chimney efficiently, causing deposits of creosote.
- Schedule regular cleaning and maintenance. Most homeowner’s insurance requires an annual inspection of your system and following the advice of your chimney professional, such as sweepings and repairs that are needed.
These practices will allow you to reduce the amount of creosote that would otherwise form while keeping your system operating well and in great shape for a longer period of time.
When Should I Schedule Chimney Cleaning?
Though there’s not a specific time for a chimney cleaning to be scheduled, we recommend that you have your annual inspection performed and then have a chimney sweep done if it’s noted as recommended maintenance by your chimney professional. No matter what kind of fuel you burn, how often you use your fireplace, or the kind of system you have, you should always schedule an annual inspection, and it’s a common requirement for homeowners’ insurance.
That being said, the fall of the year and early weeks of winter are extremely busy in the chimney sweeping industry. For that reason, please schedule your chimney cleaning ahead of this busy time for great service and the opportunity to discuss any issues that have arisen.
Do Creosote Sweeping Logs Work?
Available for sale in hardware stores and home improvement stores, creosote or chimney sweeping logs are typically around $20-$30. Given their name, one would think that it should clean your chimney out. However, compared to the work that a chimney professional does during a sweep, it’s not the better of the two options.
Creosote sweeping logs can have an impact on the creosote levels in your flue, but they don’t work as well as a chimney cleaning. They use compounds to change the chemical composition and texture of your chimney’s creosote, allowing it to break down and flake away.
This does, technically, get creosote off your chimney’s interior, but the flakes often fall back down your flue where they remain, still a fire hazard, or may stick to your chimney walls which also promotes the risk of a chimney fire.
It does not, however, remove the creosote, which is what a chimney cleaning does. Your chimney may have offsets where creosote will remain, and a technician who understands your system is vital to a thorough cleaning.
Your chimney professional also spots possible issues in your flue, which is why it’s so important to have regular professional inspections performed. Additionally, if debris, animals, or nesting materials are in your flue, the creosote sweeping log won’t do any good against these blockages.
Are Creosote Sweeping Logs Safe?
Creosote sweeping logs are perfectly safe to burn in your chimney, but they’re not as effective as a chimney cleaning. Relying on creosote sweeping logs along to keep your chimney cleaned out, assuming it’s safe for use, and thinking it’s free of debris is where it becomes unsafe.
Can Chimney Cleanings Help Avoid Carbon Monoxide Poisoning?
When you have buildup in your flue, your chimney’s interior gets a little smaller, making it much harder for smoke and fumes such as carbon monoxide to escape. This is caused by poor airflow and failure to vent properly. When you have a chimney cleaning, you’re making sure these fumes smoothly and safely travel up and out of your flue to the outside.
However, even if you have regular cleanings performed, please be sure to have carbon monoxide and smoke detectors throughout your home.
What is Carbon Monoxide?
A colorless, odorless gas, carbon monoxide is exceptionally dangerous due to its difficulty in being detected. It can cause serious illness or even lead to death. It’s produced when fuels are burned incompletely, including not only wood, but propane, natural gas, oil, and gasoline.
But how does it harm people? By taking up space in your indoor air, it reduces the amount of oxygen your body can access, slowly suffocating your body. This can cause a range of symptoms such as:
- headache and confusion
- dizziness and fainting
- nausea and vomiting
- weakness
- blurred vision
- shortness of breath
- …and more
Eventually, carbon monoxide poisoning causes the individual to lose consciousness, keeping them from leaving the area for fresher air. This eventually leads to death, making this gas especially hazardous if your household is already asleep, which is why we highly recommend carbon monoxide detectors to keep you and your loved ones safe.
I Just Moved! Do I Need a Cleaning?
Before you bought your new home, there should have been a level 2 chimney inspection performed by a CSIA-certified chimney professional. If it didn’t happen, you’ll want to have it done as soon as possible and not use your fireplace or chimney system until it’s checked over, even if you’ve had a home inspection.
Home inspections are different from a chimney inspection. Though home inspectors are good at their jobs and they take a quick look at the chimney and fireplace system, they’re not experts, and they often miss things that a chimney professional would spot in their assessment.
For this reason, we always recommend that a proper chimney inspection is booked prior to the closing on the property. In this situation, if serious issues are found, they can be included in price negotiations or handled prior to you taking possession of the property. Nobody wants an unexpected bill when they’ve just finished signing paperwork and paying for closing expenses.
If you’ve already moved in and the level 2 chimney inspection wasn’t handled, give us a call right away and don’t use your fireplace into use until it’s been done and given the all clear.
How Expensive is Chimney Cleaning?
As with most home services, the cost of your chimney cleaning will depend on your chimney. What’s its size and location? How much creosote and debris are present? Are there animals in your chimney? All these factors come into play.
As an example, if an animal or nest is found in your chimney, we’ve got the equipment to handle the situation and remove it, but the final cost will be higher than a basic sweeping because it takes more time and effort. Similarly, glazed creosote is harder to remove, requiring special products, increasing the cost of your chimney cleaning.
For this reason, we always strongly recommend regular inspection and maintenance of your chimney. If your system is inspected annually, the masonry is protected from moisture, and it has a well-fit chimney cap, your cleaning should be fairly straight-forward every year.
However, going years between inspections, failing to invest in repairs, or similar neglect can cause your bill to increase as repairs, replacement parts, and additional services are needed. Our technicians are focused on getting your chimney into great shape before the burning season so that you’ll get safer, more efficient function.
Schedule a Chimney Cleaning Now
Your home’s fireplace boosts your home value while creating amazing ambiance in your home. However, without proper care, you won’t be able to use this system with proper peace of mind and ease of use.
At Wolfman, our focus is ensuring that Austin area homeowners can enjoy their time in front of the fireplace without a lot of worry and drama. You’ll enjoy personalized care, honesty, and accuracy in our work, while benefiting from our Better Business Bureau accreditation, CSIA and FIRE certification, full insurance, NCSG membership, and ADA compliance.
We take nothing more seriously than ensuring that you can use your system easily and with peace of mind. Why not take a moment to call us today or book your appointment online . No matter how you contact us, we’re always happy to chat!