Meet the Team

Deptford sits in the part of South Jersey where Delaware River humidity does most of the damage. Heavy rain, freeze-thaw cycles and eight months of a flue sitting idle and damp add up to spalling brick, crumbling crowns, rusted dampers and flashing leaks at the shingle line. The burning season here is short and shoulder-heavy. Most households light a fire from Thanksgiving through February, maybe 20 to 40 fires a year, and that is exactly the pattern that leaves creosote at stage-one and stage-two glaze instead of burning off clean. We work across Gloucester and Camden counties, from the brick-and-masonry rowhomes and mill-town cores along the river out to the postwar tract suburbs and late-century townhouse developments toward the Pinelands edge. The housing stock changes block to block, and so does what we find in the chimney.

Most calls this time of year are a first fire that smelled wrong, a downdraft, a water stain on the ceiling near the chimney chase, or a gas log set that will not light. On site the crew brings rod-and-brush sets sized to your flue, a HEPA vacuum, drop cloths for the hearth and floor, and a camera to run up the flue so you can see what we see. For gas work we bring manometers, cleaning tools for pilot assemblies and burners, and parts common to Heatilator, Heat & Glo, Majestic, Napoleon, Superior and Empire units. We service open masonry fireplaces, sealed gas inserts and factory-built prefab systems. A lot of 1960s masonry fireboxes around here were retrofitted with vented logs or inserts when South Jersey Gas and PSE&G made it convenient, and plenty of those went in without a properly sized stainless liner. That is one of the first things we check on a chimney inspection.

We sweep, inspect, install caps and liners, work on flues and fireboxes, and handle gas fireplace repair. We do not do masonry or brickwork. If the brick needs rebuilding we will tell you and point you elsewhere. We will also tell you when your chimney does not need sweeping yet. At 20 or 30 fires a season that happens often, and an annual look with sweeping as condition dictates is the honest recommendation for this usage. As for cost, soot volume is rarely what moves the number here. Flue height and access, whether we are working off a steep roof, whether the liner is the wrong size for a gas conversion, and whether the crown and chase cover are letting water in are the things that decide whether this is a short visit or a real chimney repair. We walk you through what we found on the camera before anything else gets discussed.