Chimney Sweep in Simi Valley, CA

Chimney Sweep for Simi Valley Homeowners

Simi Valley grew explosively through the 1960s and 1970s, and that concentrated building boom left the city with a very large population of masonry chimneys that all reached middle age at roughly the same time. Neighbourhoods like the Texas Tract and Indian Hills are full of them. The valley's climate is harder on masonry than the coastal side of the Conejo grade: summer temperatures run considerably hotter, and the swing between afternoon heat and overnight cooling drives a daily expansion and contraction cycle that works existing cracks steadily wider. Add the wind that funnels through the Santa Susana Pass and you have a combination that finds every weakness in a crown or a mortar joint. Newer development in Wood Ranch and Big Sky from the 1990s onward brings the usual mix of gas appliances and factory-built units with entirely different service needs. The Santa Susana Knolls area, with its older and more idiosyncratic housing stock, tends to produce the most unusual chimney configurations we see anywhere.

The 1960s and 1970s building boom produced a large cohort of masonry chimneys now ageing in parallel, and the valley's wide daily temperature swings accelerate crack propagation in crowns and mortar joints compared with the cooler coastal side of the grade. Wind through the Santa Susana Pass adds a wind-driven rain component. Wood Ranch and Big Sky, built from the 1990s on, run instead toward gas appliances and factory-built fireboxes.

Every wood fire leaves creosote behind, a tar-like residue that condenses on the flue wall as smoke cools on its way up. It is flammable, and once it builds past about an eighth of an inch it can carry a flue fire on its own. Southern California homeowners often assume that light seasonal use makes this a non-issue, but the opposite is frequently true: short, smouldering fires burn cooler than sustained ones, and cool smoke deposits more creosote per hour of burning than a hot fire does. A chimney used a dozen evenings a winter can still need attention. The other half of the job is everything that is not creosote. Flues that sit unused for most of the year in this climate are attractive nesting sites, and we pull out bird and rodent nests, leaf packs, and the occasional lost roof tile on a regular basis.