Does Your Smoke Chamber Need Parging?
You may not hear about the smoke chamber of your chimney as much you do about the chimney cap or the liner. However, it plays an important role in the entire operation of your chimney and fireplace system. Trust us.
Located directly above the firebox, the smoke chamber is where smoke, gases, and the other byproducts of combustion are funneled into the flue from the fireplace so that they can be exhausted from your home. Basically, it ensures all that smoke from the fire is going out of your house instead of into your living room.
When the walls of the smoke chamber become cracked and damaged, it can cause troubling problems, including ones that can be potentially dangerous such as carbon monoxide leaks. If you suspect that your smoke chamber is not currently in good condition, you should contact us. We’re happy to further explain in person or on the phone the importance of parging, and to answer any additional questions.
What exactly is parging?
According to the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA), parging is the most common repair done to a smoke chamber. This area of your chimney system needs to have smooth walls, and parging is simply a coating of mortar that is applied to the bricks and mortar joints. Parging can also be used to solve other smoke chamber issues.
What other smoke chamber issues can parging help to solve?
In order to work at its best, it is important for the smoke chamber to be designed properly. If it is too deep, too tall, or too wide, you will likely have draft problems. Since the smoke chamber plays such a big role in the chimney draft, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has made design recommendations.
When All American Chimney Service constructs a new chimney or parges an existing smoke chamber, we follow these recommendations and make sure it is not taller or deeper than the fireplace opening. We also ensure that the walls of the smoke chamber do not have an incline angle that is more than 45 degrees from vertical. Again, our top priority is to make sure the smoke and other gases are properly exhausted from your house.
What are the benefits of having my smoke chamber parged?
There are several key benefits that we can confirm in our experience. And if you have ever had problems with getting a fire started, you’ll know these are essential.
- After parging, the walls of the smoke chamber will have a smooth surface that is needed for an optimum chimney draft.
- It adds insulation to your chimney; again, it’s another way of improving the draft.
Make sure your chimney is functioning at its best this winter, and give us a call.
Reminder: Schedule Your Onsite Inspection
Our team will thoroughly inspect and write a report onsite, identifying any problems and aspects of your chimney with a video camera (level 2) before issuing any estimates. The process takes about 1-2 hours.
The report includes pictures of your chimney identifying the issues and how to fix them, as well as diagrams and illustrations of the chimney’s composition so that you will get a better understanding of how they work and how they are constructed. For your awareness, this service is $162. We will then credit you back the $162 toward any work that is completed with our company.
We do this to so we can warranty your chimney repairs. Please feel free to reference our reviews to hear of the great successes we've had resolving issues for our clients.
