A chimney cap is the cheap little component that pulls far more than its weight, and a flue left open at the top is a flue asking for trouble. Chimney Care Philadelphia fits chimney caps across Upper Darby, PA that are sized to the flue they sit over, anchored to hold through a Delaware County blow, and screened to shut out animals while letting the smoke draft freely. We treat the cap as a working part of the chimney, because in a climate of driving rain, hard freezes, and the squirrels and starlings that move into any open shaft, that is exactly what it is.
- Cap sized to the real flue opening rather than bought to fit roughly
- Stainless or galvanized build to stand up to the weather
- Screen sized to stop animals while keeping the draft clear
- Anchored to hold against wind and storm
- Spark-arrestor function to catch embers leaving the flue
- A free measure-up and a straight written estimate
Four problems an open flue invites in at the top
An uncapped flue is a hole in the top of your house, and four separate problems pour right through it. The first is water. Rain and snow that fall straight down an open flue soak the liner, the smoke shelf, and the firebox, rusting the damper and feeding the freeze-thaw damage that breaks down the masonry from within. The second is wildlife. Squirrels, raccoons, and birds find an open flue an ideal sheltered shaft to nest in, and a nest is both a draft block that pushes smoke and carbon monoxide back into the room and a fire load in its own right. A proper cap, screened correctly, shuts both of those out at once.
The third job is catching sparks. A cap fitted with a spark-arrestor screen stops the burning bits riding up the flue from settling on the roof, which counts for a great deal on the closely set rows around Upper Darby, where a roof fire does not stay on one address. The fourth is guarding the draft itself, because a cap with the right mesh and clearance keeps the rain and animals out without strangling the airflow the fire lives on. Get the cap wrong and you swap one problem for another. Get it right and it quietly handles all four for years on end.
Why fit and fastening decide everything with a cap
A cap is only as good as the way it sits, and one that is too small or loosely pinned is barely better than no cap at all. We measure the actual flue opening, single or several, and fit a cap that covers it fully, with a mesh that turns animals away without choking the draft the appliance needs. The metal matters too. We hang caps built to live in the weather rather than the thin ones that rust through in a couple of seasons and need doing over again, because a cap that fails is a cap quietly letting the water and the animals back in while nobody is looking, right up until the damage shows.
Fastening is the corner a cheap install always cuts. A cap that is not properly anchored will lift or shift in the kind of gusts a Delaware County storm brings, and a cap that has moved has stopped doing its job. We pin the cap to stay put through the weather these chimneys actually see. If your chimney has no cap, a rusted-out one, or one an animal has already shoved aside, the fix is usually quick and inexpensive, and it is one of the highest-value small jobs a chimney can have done. We will measure the flue at no charge and put exactly what your chimney needs in writing.
Stacks with more than one flue, and the crown underneath
A fair number of chimneys around Upper Darby carry more than one flue on a single brick stack, a fireplace and a heating appliance, or a pair of fireplaces, each wanting its own protection up top. When we cap a chimney we account for every flue on it rather than the one that catches the eye, because a flue left open is a flue admitting all the water, animals, and weather a cap is meant to bar. Whether that means an individual cap on each opening or one larger cap spanning them all, the point is that nothing at the top is left bare to quietly cause the very damage the rest of the cap is busy preventing.
The cap also works in concert with the crown beneath it, and setting a cap is the natural moment to take stock of both. The crown sheds water off the top of the masonry while the cap keeps it out of the flue opening, and a weakness in either one leaves the top of the chimney exposed. When we hang a cap we tell you honestly what the crown underneath looks like, so you are protecting the whole top of the chimney rather than just one piece of it. Often a cap and a crown repair make sense as one trip, and we will lay out what the top of your chimney truly needs in writing, with no push to do more than is warranted.
One call, every chimney job
A chimney is a system, so chimney cap installation rarely stands alone, it connects to fireplace sweep, pre-season chimney inspection, chimney patching, flue relining, chimney repointing, and our crew handles all of it under one roof. We bring the same service to Chimney Cap Installation in Yeadon, Chimney Cap Installation in Darby, Lansdowne chimney cap installation, Chimney Cap Installation in Collingdale and everywhere else across the Upper Darby area.
If you searched for a local chimney crew near you, you have reached a local crew, call 215-650-3298 any time. For background, read Adding a Wood Stove or Insert in Your Upper Darby, PA Home? Read This First on our blog, or head back to our Upper Darby home page to see everything we do.