The chimney cap is a small part that does an outsized amount of work, and a flue left open at the top invites every problem the cap is meant to prevent. EmberTrace Chimney Sweep installs chimney caps across Westerville, OH that are sized to the flue they protect, fitted with a spark-arrestor screen, and secured to hold against the wind that sweeps across the open ground north of the city. We treat the cap as a working part of the chimney system, because in a climate of driving rain, snow, and freeze-thaw, and a region with no shortage of nesting animals, that is exactly what it is.
- Stainless or copper caps built to last
- Spark-arrestor mesh to keep embers in and animals out
- Sized and fitted to your specific flue
- Secured against wind and weather
- Keeps rain, snow, and debris out of the flue
- Free measure-up and a straight written estimate
The quiet job a cap does for the whole chimney
An open flue is a hole pointed straight up at the sky, and everything the sky delivers goes right down it. Rain and snowmelt fall into the flue, soak the masonry from the inside, rust the damper, and corrode a metal liner from within, while the freeze-thaw cycle works on the dampened masonry the same way it works on a cracked crown. A cap closes that opening with a roof of its own, shedding the weather clear of the flue while still letting the smoke out, which is the whole balancing act a good cap has to manage. Without one, a Westerville chimney takes water damage from the top down, season after season, in a way that is entirely preventable.
Then there are the animals, which around here are a year-round nuisance and a spring certainty. An uncapped flue is an ideal cavity for birds, squirrels, and raccoons to nest in, and a nest is more than a mess. It blocks the flue, which backs dangerous flue gases into the house, and it adds combustible material exactly where you least want it. The spark-arrestor screen on a proper cap keeps the animals out and, just as importantly, keeps live embers from drifting out of the flue and onto a dry roof or into the yard. A cap is cheap insurance against a whole category of problems that an open flue all but guarantees.
What a cap installed correctly actually requires
A cap is more than a metal lid set loosely on top of the chimney. It has to be sized to the actual flue or flues it covers, because a cap that is too small restricts the draft and a cap that is poorly fitted will rattle loose in the first hard wind. It has to carry a spark-arrestor screen with the right mesh, fine enough to stop embers and animals but open enough not to clog with soot and choke the draft. And it has to be secured to the flue or the crown so that the wind coming across the open farmland and newer developments north toward Delaware County cannot lift it off. We measure before we order, so the cap that goes on is the cap that fits.
On the older masonry chimneys we often fit a single-flue stainless cap or a full crown-mounted cap that covers several flues and shelters the crown itself, and on the newer factory-built systems we fit the chase cover and cap that suit that unit. Where the existing chase cover has rusted and is itself letting water in, we address that at the same time, because a new cap over a leaking chase cover only solves half the problem. Stainless and copper are the materials we trust to last in this climate, and we secure everything to stay put through whatever the season brings.
Cheap to add, costly to skip
Of all the work a chimney can need, a cap is among the best values, precisely because it heads off the slow, costly damage that an open flue invites and that nobody notices until it is well advanced. A cap almost always costs far less than the crown repair, the relining, the rusted damper, or the animal removal it prevents, and on a Westerville chimney it also eases the water load that drives so much winter masonry damage. A good cap is quiet protection for everything below it, from the crown to the firebox.
We will measure your flue at no charge and tell you exactly what your chimney needs, with an honest estimate set down in writing. If your chimney has no cap, or the existing one has rusted through, blown loose, or filled with debris, the remedy is usually simple and quick, and it is one of the easiest ways to add years of safe service to the whole chimney. Where a cap goes hand in hand with other work, a crown repair or a reline, we will line the jobs up so you are not paying twice to get a crew on the roof, but a cap never has to wait on a bigger project to be worth doing on its own.
The full chimney, one team
A chimney is a system, so chimney cap installation rarely stands alone, it connects to fireplace sweep, flue inspection, chimney patching, flue relining, brick repair, and our crew handles all of it under one roof. We bring the same service to Minerva Park chimney cap installation, Worthington chimney cap installation, Chimney Cap Installation in New Albany, Chimney Cap Installation in Lewis Center and everywhere else across the Westerville area.
If you searched for chimney sweep near me, you have reached a local crew, call 740-437-3286 any time. For background, read The Chimney Crown: The Small Crack That Costs Westerville, OH Homeowners the Most on our blog, or head back to our Westerville home page to see everything we do.