Moyock Chimney Inspections: What Coastal NC Homeowners Need to Know
I was nineteen years old when my uncle first dragged me up a ladder. He told me he was too old to be breathing soot and too young to retire. That was twenty-three years ago. I’ve been climbing roofs from Moyock to Barco ever since. I grew up fishing the Currituck Sound. I know how the wind cuts across the water in January. I know every back road in this county.
If you live around here, you know me or you know my truck. I’m Danny. I’m the guy who looks at your chimney and tells you the truth even when you don't want to hear it. And I have some things to say about how folks in North Carolina treat their fireplaces.
Most of you wait too long. You wait until the first frost hits the pumpkin patch. Then you call me in a panic because the wood stove is smoking up the living room. I see it every year. By then I am booked solid until March. But the schedule isn't the biggest problem. The problem is what I find when I finally get up there.
The Critters on Caratoke Highway
I have pulled just about everything you can imagine out of a flue. Birds are standard. Squirrels happen. Raccoons are mean, but I can handle them. But let me tell you about a job I did off Caratoke Highway a few years back.
The homeowner said she heard scratching. She thought it was a mouse. I got up on the roof and shined my light down the liner. I saw something moving that didn't look like fur. It looked like scales.
I went down to the firebox and opened the damper. A black snake dropped out. It wasn't a small garden snake. This thing was longer than my arm and thick as a rolling pin. It had climbed a tree, got onto the roof, seeking heat, and slid right down. The lady of the house was standing in the kitchen doorway. She screamed loud enough to wake the dead in the family plot out back. I caught him and let him go in the woods. He was covered in creosote and mad as hell.
That snake got in because the chimney cap was rusted out. A ten-dollar part failed and let nature right into the living room. That is why you need eyes on your system.
Salt Air is a Masonry Killer
People move here from inland and they don't understand the air. They love the breeze. They love being close to the water. But that air is heavy. It carries salt. Even up here in Moyock, we get that coastal humidity that just sits on everything.
Salt is aggressive. It eats metal, we all know that from looking at our truck undercarriages. But folks forget it eats masonry too. I see brick faces popping off all the time. We call it spalling. The salt and moisture get inside the porous brick. When the temperature drops, that moisture expands. It cracks the face right off.
The mortar joints take a beating too. I was at a house near Tulls Creek last week. From the ground, the chimney looked fine. Up on the roof, I took a screwdriver and poked the mortar. It turned to powder. It was like wet sand. The humidity had worked on it for a decade. The structure was barely holding together. If we had a tropical storm with decent wind, that stack of bricks would have come down on the roof.
You cannot see this from your driveway. You have to be up there. You have to touch it.
What Level Inspection Do You Need?
Customers always ask me what I’m going to do. They get confused by the terminology. The industry breaks it down into levels. I’ll keep it simple for you.
Level 1 Inspection
This is the basic check. If you have been using your fireplace regularly and nothing has changed, this is what you get. I look at the readily accessible parts. I check the firebox. I check the damper. I look up the flue with a light. I go on the roof and check the cap and crown. I am looking for obvious obstructions or heavy combustible deposits.
Level 2 Inspection
This is the one I recommend most of the time. If you are buying a house, you are required to get this. If you are selling, you should get this. If you had a chimney fire or changed your fuel source, you need this.
A Level 2 inspection involves video scanning. I run a camera on a rod all the way up the flue. We look at every inch of the liner. We look for cracks the human eye can't see from the top or bottom. I check the attic to see the chimney exterior. I check the crawl space. I am looking for clearance to combustibles. I want to make sure the wood framing of your house isn't touching the masonry where it shouldn't.
I prefer doing Level 2 inspections. It stops me from guessing. I don't like guessing when fire is involved.
Why That CSIA Badge Matters
I am certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America. I worked hard for that. My uncle taught me how to sweep, but the CSIA taught me the science. It taught me the codes.
There are guys around here with a pickup truck and a brush they bought at the hardware store. They charge half of what I charge. They come in, vacuum a little soot, and leave. They don't know what a clay tile liner looks like when it's fractured. They don't know about airflow or draft physics.
When you hire someone with the certification, you are hiring someone who has studied the manuals. I have to retest every few years to keep that badge. It means I treat your home like a system, not just a dirty hole in the roof.
Don't Wait on the Weather
We live in a beautiful place. I wouldn't trade Currituck County for anywhere else. But the climate here is hard on houses. The dampness is constant. The salt is invisible but it is there.
If you haven't had someone look at your system in a year or two, give me or another certified sweep a call. Do it before the leaves start turning. You don't want to find out your flue is blocked when you light that first Christmas fire. And you definitely don't want to find a black snake in your firebox because you forgot to check the cap.
Keep your fire hot and your chimney clean. I’ll see you around town.