Fifty freeze cycles a winter, ice dams every March, and five straight months where the fireplace is on the payroll. A west-metro chimney has no easy years — which is why the people who look after it shouldn't guess. Ours don't: they bring a camera.
Five burning months lay down tar the way January lays down snow. We clear it before the glaze stage, when it stops being maintenance and starts being a fire risk.
The camera goes where flashlights can't and opinions shouldn't. Cracked tiles, hidden nests, shifted joints — photographed, written up and handed to you the same visit.
Fifty freezes a winter pry at the crown like a crowbar on a slow schedule. Split crowns get recast, loose caps refastened, and the top courses relaid before they lean.
When the joints go sandy, water moves in and winter does the demolition for free. We grind out the failed lines and repack them with mortar blended to the original.
To a raccoon, an open west-metro flue is a furnished winter rental. Screened caps and tight chase covers end the lease — and keep snowmelt out while they're at it.
Every March the same ceilings stain, because meltwater pooling behind ice always exits through the flashing. We rebuild that seam so spring shows up without a drip.
A wood stove or insert only performs as well as the pipe above it. Insulated stainless liners bring 1970s clay flues up to what today's appliances — and codes — expect.
Frost heaves stoops, sheds veneer stones and cracks garden walls like clockwork. We reset what winter moved and build new work that holds its line through the thaw.
Masonry season in Minnesota is short — mortar wants warm days to cure, and the calendar from May to October books solid. The $99 inspection runs all year; the repairs it finds shouldn't wait for the last warm week.
Describe the symptom to a human who's been on a hundred roofs. First guidance is instant and free.
The $99 inspection maps the whole system; repair quotes are scoped from evidence, not estimates.
Findings photographed, fixes priced line by line, urgency ranked honestly. The quote itself costs nothing.
Done in season, cured properly, cleaned up completely — built to shrug off the next fifty freezes.
One call books the camera. Weekdays from seven in the morning to half past seven at night, someone who knows flues picks up.
(763) 200-9533Township not listed? Call (763) 200-9533 — the trucks range farther than the map.
A camera pass through the whole flue, plus hands-on checks of the firebox, damper, smoke chamber, crown, cap, flashing and exterior brick — finished with a photographed written report the same visit. It's a diagnostic by a technician, not a doorway to a pitch. That's exactly why it isn't free.
The stove season runs five months, so a wood burner in regular use earns a sweep every season — or every face cord, whichever arrives first. Gas fireplaces still want the flue checked yearly, because blockages and cracked tiles don't ask what fuel you burn.
Mostly it works the top. Moisture slips into hairline gaps, freezes overnight, and levers the crown and upper courses apart — the west metro logs fifty-plus freeze-thaw swings a season. That's why the top three feet of a chimney age about twice as fast as everything below the roofline.
Join the club; an uncapped flue up here is a heated den with a skylight. Once the raccoons or squirrels have moved along — humanely and within the rules — a screened cap or chase cover goes on and the vacancy sign comes down for good.
Ice-dam season. Meltwater ponds behind the ice at your roof edge and travels sideways under the shingles until it finds the chimney flashing — usually the easiest way in. Rebuilding that flashing and correcting the crown typically retires the ritual permanently.
Yes — an insulated stainless liner sized to the appliance, connected and documented to code. Much of the west metro's 70s and 80s housing has clay flues that need this step before an insert can run safely.
All the time. Frost heaves concrete stoops out of level and pops manufactured stone off its scratch coat once water sneaks behind it. Both repairs come from the same crew — and the same free written quote — as the chimney work.
Monday through Friday from 7 in the morning until half past 7 at night. Saturdays and Sundays the phones sleep in.
No call center script — the voice on the line has hauled a vacuum through January and can price most jobs from your description alone.
(763) 200-9533 Ring The ShopMonday – Friday, 7:00 AM – 7:30 PM
Weekends: closed