Chimney Inspection & Cleaning in Montclair, NJ

Montclair, Essex County

What chimneys are like in Montclair

Montclair is the town where we most often find four working fireplaces in one house. The Estate Section and Upper Montclair were built out between roughly 1890 and 1930 in Shingle Style, Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival, and in that era a fireplace in the parlor, the dining room and two bedrooms was normal. Those houses came with genuinely beautiful masonry -- corbelled brick stacks, stone chimney breasts, decorative clay pots -- and almost none of it was built to vent anything but wood.

The thing that makes Montclair chimneys wear faster than the ones a few miles east is the ridge. Montclair sits up against First Watchung Mountain, and the stacks on those houses are tall, fully exposed, and take wind-driven rain off the western slope all winter. Water is what kills a chimney here, not fire. We see cracked crowns on almost every uncapped stack above Upper Mountain Avenue, and once the crown goes, water runs straight down between the flue liner and the brick where you cannot see it until the chimney breast in the bedroom starts to stain.

Slate is the other Montclair factor. A large share of the older housing stock still has original slate roofs, and slate is unforgiving to walk. We plan roof access before we quote, and on a steep slate roof we work from a ladder and the flue rather than putting a technician's weight where it will cost you a roof repair. If your house has slate, tell us when you call so we bring the right setup the first time.