When you hear the term “chimney inspector,” do you think of a guy in a tall hat who stands on your roof, looking up at your chimney, and pointing at it with a stick? If so, you’re not alone. That’s what you must have pictured before you learned differently. A chimney inspector is actually someone who can look up your chimney from the inside. He’ll crawl into your fireplace, go down the flue, and climb up to the top of the chimney to inspect it from within.
The main reason to get inspected is so that you can find out if your chimney needs repair before there’s a problem. It just makes sense to make sure everything’s safe before you start a fire or otherwise put yourself or others at risk. You’ll also want to know if your fireplace insert works properly (if you have one) and whether it’s vented correctly or not.
The good news is that inspections are normally included as part of a general home inspection, which you may already have done when you bought your house or moved into it.
When you hire a chimney inspector, you’re hiring someone to tell you how safe your chimney is. Because the safety of your home takes priority over everything else, it’s important for the inspector to see all aspects of the home he or she is inspecting. This includes the roof and the attic—any space that may be affected by or could affect your chimney. It’s unlikely that the roof will have anything to do with your chimney, but if there is any deterioration in that area, it could cause complications with water damage to your home. An attic, on the other hand, could contain all sorts of things that could get in the way of your chimney and affect its safety. If your attic isn’t properly insulated, for example, there could be moisture buildup (which can lead to mold) that could eventually cause water damage in other parts of your house. If the insulation has poor ventilation, there might be too much moisture in general in that area, which can also lead to mold and mildew—and thus again to water damage. Even if there are no issues with humidity or condensation, an improperly ventilated attic can still harbor a lot of dust and allergens due to lack of air circulation.
