A clean chimney is a safe chimney—one that poses no threat of fire, smoke damage, or harmful gasses. Chimney cleaning service is dirty work. Removing the creosote and soot that builds up inside the chimney is a job that requires the proper tools and professional training. That is why we recommend you turn to the licensed, bonded, and insured sweeps at our company for chimney  services . Let us thoroughly clean the inside of your chimney for you.

We recommend a thorough cleaning once a year, more so if you have any safety concerns. When those fragrant logs burn, they turn into creosote, which builds up on the inside walls. Creosote buildup can make it harder  for the heat and gasses to exit the chimney, posing a fire hazard. Over time, this buildup can flame up and cause a house fire. Make your home a safer place for your family with our chimney sweep services.
Fire damage is one reason to keep your chimney clean. Smoke damage is another. As creosote cakes the inside walls of your chimney, it makes it harder for smoke and other gases to escape through the top of the chimney. This can even lead to situations where smoke, soot, and gases are vented into-instead of outside-of your house.

Smoke brings with it an unpleasant odor that is difficult to remove, while soot leaves nasty residue behind. The residue sinks deep into the fabric of your furniture, carpeting, and even the drywall. Improper ventilation also leads to gases escaping inside the house. This could result in your family suffering from the ill effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Prevent problems with an annual chimney cleaning and inspection. A good time for service is in the fall before you start using the fireplace on a regular basis. This allows our sweeps to clean and inspect your chimney, as well as to remove any debris that may accumulate. With our services, you and your family can sit back and bask in the glow of the flames without worrying about fire hazards.

A flue lining in a masonry chimney is defined as “A clay, ceramic, or metal conduit installed inside of a chimney, intended to contain the combustion products, direct them to the outside atmosphere, and protect the chimney walls from heat and corrosion.”

Although building codes vary from one state or locality to another, the installation of flue lining has been recommended since the early part of this century, and indeed most fire codes now mandate liners.

In the 1940’s and again in the 1980’s, masonry chimneys were tested by the National Bureau or Standards for durability due to rising concerns about their performance and safety. The tests revealed that unlined chimneys were so unsafe that researchers characterized building a chimney without a liner as “little less than criminal”.

Chimney liners serve three main functions:

1. Protecting the house from heat transfer to combustibles. In the NBS tests, unlined chimneys allowed heat to move through the chimney so rapidly that the adjacent woodwork caught fire in only 3 1/2 hours.
2. Protecting the masonry from the corrosive byproducts of combustion. In the tests it was determined that if the flue gases were allowed to penetrate to the brick and mortar, the result would be a reduction in the usable life of the chimney. The flue gases are acidic in nature and literally eat away at the mortar joints from inside the chimney. As the mortar joints erode, heat transfers more rapidly to the nearby combustibles and dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide can leak into the living areas of the home.
3. Providing a correctly sized flue for optimum efficiency of appliances. Modern wood stoves and gas or oil furnaces require a correctly sized flue to perform properly. The chimney is responsible for not only allowing the products of combustion a passage out of the house, but the draft generated by the chimney also supplies the combustion air to the appliance. An incorrectly sized liner can lead to excessive creosote buildup in wood-burning stoves, and the production of carbon monoxide with conventional fuels.

Types of chimney liners:

• Clay tiles are the most common type of masonry chimney liners.
  • Advantages: They are inexpensive, readily available, and perform quite well for open fireplace chimneys that are properly maintained.

Disadvantages:  They cannot rapidly absorb and evenly distribute heat during the rapid temperature rise that occurs during a chimney fire, causing the flue tiles to crack and split apart (see the video below). The second disadvantage is that tiles cannot adequately contain the liquid combustion byproducts produced by modern gas appliances.

Metal chimney liners, usually of stainless steel or aluminum, are primarily used to upgrade and repair existing chimneys.

• • Advantages:  If properly installed and maintained, metal chimney liners are extremely safe and durable. Stainless steel is suitable for wood-burning, gas, or oil appliances, while the aluminum is an inexpensive alternative for certain medium efficiency gas applications only. It is usually required that high temperature insulation be used in conjunction with the liners for safety and performance considerations.
  • Disadvantage: Considerably more expensive than clay flue liners.
  • National Chimney offers a line of metal chimney liners that have been accepted by CSIA as safe for home use when properly installed.
• Cast-in-place chimney liners are lightweight, cement like products that are installed inside the chimney forming a smooth, seamless, insulated passageway for the flue gasses.
  • Advantage: They can improve the structural integrity of aging chimneys, and are permanent liners suitable for all fuels.
  • Disadvantage: Challenging installation and could be cost prohibitive.

Considering the dangers of old unlined or damaged chimneys, and the many cost effective options now available to make these chimneys safe components of the home heating system, we encourage you to have your chimney professionally inspected by a local CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep an an annual basis to be sure it meets modern safety standards.

Chimneys built using bricks, stone and mortar are strong and can stand the test of time.However, unavoidable conditions such as freezing, thawing and continuous changes in temperature can damage the mortar between the bricks and weaken the chimney.At other times, a portion of the chimney might become weak.Chimney repointing experts from Imperial Home Improvement Llc will repair all these damages to reinstate the structural strength of your chimney.At Imperial Home Improvement Llc we repoint chimneys using tried and tested methods to ensure that the chimney is strong enough to stand strong for several more years.

Chimney Repointing Benefits:

Chimney repointing has several benefits and is well worth the cost.Enhances the durability of the chimney by correcting the damages Reinstates the structural strength and stability of the chimney Gives a fresh makeover to your chimney as well Protects against water damage Saves money on repair in the long run Repointing chimneys is a seemingly simple job but takes a lot of precision.The crumbling mortar needs to be painstakingly removed using chisels, and replaced with fresh mortar. The existing mortar needs to be removed up to a depth of 1″ to 1.5″ before fresh mortar can be applied.Chimney repointing requires experts; if the mortar is not matched perfectly or if the filling is efficient, the joints in the chimney can swell and contract with variations in temperature. This may cause severe damage in the long run.We promise quality, efficiency and prompt customer support for every job we take up. No job is too big or too small for us.

Chimney Rebuilding

Chimney rebuilding is another common masonry repair for the GTA homeowner. Most masonry chimneys do not have issues unless they are located above the roof line. Below the roof line the chimney is protected by a roof and roof line. Above the roof line, the chimney is susceptible to many environmental exposures. It is exposed to rain, snow, wind and sudden changes of temperatures to the top of the chimney flue liner.The hottest part of a fire is the top of the flame which is the flue liner above the roof line.When you combine a cold evening (-20 or colder) with the starting of a fireplace,the extreme change in temperature affects the top section of the flue liner, causing it to break away from the crown (if a crown exists).Our forces are trained to rebuild or repair your chimney to fire code standards including the installation of a fire rated caulking.The fire rated caulking has been formulated to perform in extreme temperature fluctuations and seals the joints between the flue liner and the crown properly. Proper drip edges in the cap of the chimney are essential to guide water away from the masonry. Finally, if animals or birds entering the chimney are a concern, the installation of rain cap is the best solution.

Chimney repair
Will help prevent the risk of fire, leaks and improve the overall look of your home. Chimney rebuilds can be partial or complete. Chimney Repair could include a variety of different things, rom tuckpointing (filling in the mortar between the joints, where the mortar has eroded), or fixing a chimney liner when it has been damaged or is old and needs replacing.Getting your chimney fixed, especially in North/Central Jersey ,where there is so much freezing and thawing happening is very important. Leaving it can lead to leaks where water comes into the house through the chimney which in turn leads to unnecessary expenses! Sometimes part of the chimney would need rebuilding, but you must ensure that when the top part of the chimney is rebuilt the bottom part must be solid and in good shape or it is pointless. The bottom part will erode further and you will end up having to rebuild the gas chimney linerwhole chimney later on. Imperial Home Improvement will do a full inspection of the chimney and ensure that what you need gets communicated and the job is done right the first time!