Friday, February 20, 2015

Steps To Protect Your Home With Chimney Repair NJ

By Olivia Cross


A chimney is a part of our homes that gets exposed to extremes every day. Sweltering heat from inside the house, bitter cold during winter and the pull and push from strong gusts of wind are some of them. Since it is an important structure of our home, any damages or imperfections have to be addressed as soon as they are detected. Neglect may lead to dangerous damage to our house and family. It would be good to understand what chimney repair NJ professionals would do about repairing the damage.

Home maintenance experts like pointing out often that chimneys that have seen a number of winters under heavy use require re-lining, cleaning up or re-building when beyond repair. This form of repairs and maintenance is required for the efficient, safe functional use of our chimneys and homes.

During winter, your chimney must have accumulated soot and creosote which have dangerous toxins. You could forget or overlook to clean up once winter passes since you no longer need a fire to keep warm. Winter will come again to find the bad chemicals stuck on your bricks. Those chemicals will pose a danger once you start using the fireplace again.

Long years of damage from the weather could have compromised the structure of our chimneys. The external sections of mortar joints or pointing could have developed voids in between bricks that could allow water in. This kind of problem can be avoided or repaired for homeowners with a simple re-pointing fix by the chimney sweep. The professional could also need to lay a new set of bricks where chimneys are dilapidated or entirely replace stucco or brick chimneys that are damaged beyond repair.

Yet another big threat to our homes chimneys comes from old and dilapidated flue liners. These function by preventing combustible material around the chimneys from catching fire. With time, the liners tend to wear away meaning they are not protecting the building and need to be replaced. Masonry sweeps should have the expertise to find crumbling and cracked liners replacing them whenever this is needed.

Your chimneys clay liners may have cracked or broken up. This will allow in moisture that shall lead to structural defects. Smoke and sulfur may mix up with moisture creating a corrosive mixture that eats miniscule holes on your metal liners. To maintain safety in our homes and chimneys, your inner lining systems have to be securely in place to prevent moisture, smoke, creosote and carbon dioxide from seeping into your house through bricks and mortar.

It could happen that the inner liner was actually never installed or if it were, it has deteriorated with time. Noticing that a chimney is not functioning by pulling smoke out and up from the house means there is a problem with the chimneys liner. A smelly fireplace points to creosote building up too fast pointing problems with the liner. Any of these problems can be fixed by a professional.

Corner cutting and temporary solutions where chimneys are concerned are not acceptable. Repairs and maintenance happen to be crucial since failure could lead to our homes catching fire. It could lead to toxin based health problems for our families too.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment