Turn One Vague Inspection Line Into a Document Your Client Can Read.
Transaction chimney work: the flue on camera, the exterior components examined where the roof allows, every finding photographed, and a written scope the other side can price. Booked against your deadline, not ours.
Say the date your window closes when you call. If we can't make it, you'll hear that on the phone instead of finding out on day nine.
Condition first
The page does not turn a symptom into an online diagnosis.
Receipt after acceptance
The secure form shows success only after the request is accepted.
Timing is confirmed
Requested dates and windows are preferences until follow-up.
The chimney is rarely the deal. It is often the delay.
Almost every chimney problem you meet in a transaction arrives the same way: one sentence on somebody else’s report, no photograph, no scope, and a clock already running. There are three moments where that sentence can be replaced with a fact.
Pre-listing, so the finding is yours first
A seller who already has the flue documented controls the conversation. You know before photography whether the fireplace is usable, whether the crown is failing, and roughly what a buyer's inspector is going to write. If it's clean, that document goes in the listing file. If it isn't, the seller gets to choose between fixing it and pricing it, which is a much better position than reacting to somebody else's report on day six.
Re-inspection of one line the buyer's inspector flagged
General home inspectors are working to a Level 1 scope on a chimney and they are right to stop where they stop. "Recommend evaluation by a qualified chimney professional" is not a defect; it's a handoff. We take that line and turn it into a specific condition with a photograph attached, so nobody is negotiating against a sentence that could just as easily mean a new cap or a full reline.
A scope both sides can put a number on
Option period in Texas, due diligence in most other contracts, and short either way. What moves a repair amendment forward is not an opinion about severity, it's a written scope: what is wrong, what corrects it, and what it costs. Once that exists, the two agents are arguing about money instead of about whether the chimney is really a problem.
Level 2 scope, written down.
NFPA 211 defines what a Level 2 examination includes, and a transaction is the textbook reason to order one: the property is changing hands, so the flue gets looked at internally rather than from the hearth.
Six things get examined and six things end up in the file. The sixth one, the statement of what we could not reach, is the part most reports leave out and the part that protects your client when somebody asks questions in year two.
Flue interior on camera
A camera run through the accessible length of the flue, recording liner condition, joint separation, obstruction, and creosote build. The footage is where a liner call comes from, not a flashlight from the firebox.
Firebox, damper, smoke chamber
The parts a buyer touches. Cracked or spalled firebrick, refractory panels past their limit, a damper that no longer seats, parging that has fallen out of the smoke chamber.
Crown, cap, flashing, chase cover
Examined from the roof where the roof can be walked safely. These are the items that turn into a ceiling stain two winters after closing, which is when somebody starts asking who knew about it.
Clearances and termination
Measured against NFPA 211 and the venting requirements in the IRC. A termination that is short of the 3-2-10 rule is a code finding with a defined fix, and it reads very differently in a negotiation than "chimney seems low."
Photographs keyed to each finding
Every condition in the report carries the image it came from. Your client should be able to look at the photo and see the thing you are describing without taking your word for it.
A written statement of what we could not examine
Sealed chases, inaccessible flues, roofs we would not walk that day. The limits go in the document. A report that quietly omits what it skipped is the one that causes trouble later.
Four things we won’t do for you.
Worth reading before you send us a house. If any of these are a problem for the transaction you have in front of you, this is the wrong vendor and it costs you nothing to know that now.
We don't grade a finding softer because a contract is pending
The condition is what it is on the day we look at it. If that inconveniences a closing, it would have inconvenienced the buyer more in January. A report that bends is worth nothing to you the second time you use us.
We don't advise either party on the deal
We won't tell your client whether to buy the house, and we won't suggest what to ask for or what to concede. You get the condition, the scope, and the pricing. The strategy is your job and you're better at it than we are.
We don't call what we can't see
Where a condition can only be confirmed by opening a chase wall or removing a factory-built unit, the report says a Level 3 examination is required and names what it would resolve. It does not guess, and it does not pad the finding to make the visit feel worth it.
We don't write or negotiate the amendment
The repair scope and the quote are documents you can attach. Drafting contract language is your side of the line, and it should be, because we don't carry your license.
The deadline is the first question, not the last.
When you call, lead with the date your window closes and the address. Everything else about the booking is downstream of whether we can be there in time, and that answer belongs at the start of the call.
You get a yes or a no on the date, on the phone
Not a callback, not a dispatcher promising to try. If the week is full or the property is outside a crew's run, you hear it while you still have time to call somebody else.
Weather can split the visit
We will not put a technician on a wet, iced, or steep-and-brittle roof to hit a date. When that happens the interior work goes ahead and the exterior portion is scheduled separately, and the report is explicit that the roof-level components were not examined yet. That is the honest trade-off in a February closing.
The re-inspection gets booked at the same time
If a repair is going to happen before closing, put the follow-up visit on the calendar when you book the first one. Chasing that appointment in the last week of a contract is how documentation ends up missing from the file.
The report goes to the person who ordered it
In writing, as a PDF, to the name on the booking. Distribution after that is theirs to decide, and we do not send it anywhere on our own.
One number for the look. Repairs after we’ve seen it.
The inspection is priced as a service, not as a percentage of anything. What moves it is the property: a two-story roof, a second or third flue, or a chase that has to be reached from a ladder rather than walked.
Prices shown are starting estimates and may change with the condition, access, and scope we find on site. Only a written quote from an on-site visit is a price we commit to.
Every service rate that feeds a repair quote sits in public view on our pricing page, so your client can check the line items against a public list rather than take a single total on faith.
Read next
The buyer-and-seller version of this page, including pre-sale certification.
Chimney inspectionWhat the inspection covers on an ordinary service call, outside a transaction.
Published pricingThe line-item rates a repair quote is assembled from.
Licenses & insuranceWhat we hold, in writing, for the file your client keeps.
Send the address and the date it has to be done by — we’ll answer both.
Useful to include: whether the fireplace is wood or gas, how many flues the house has, whether anyone has been up on the roof recently, and the exact line the general inspector wrote. If you have that report, attach it when we reply and we’ll go in knowing what we are being asked to resolve.
Calls are answered by a person 7am–midnight daily.
Tell us what you need
Agent questions, answered straight
The buyer's inspector wrote "chimney needs further evaluation." What do we actually get back from you?
A specific condition instead of a referral sentence. We run the camera, examine the firebox and the exterior components, and write up what is wrong in language a client can read, with the photograph next to it and the code reference where one applies. Where a repair is needed you also get the scope of that repair, so the number in the amendment has something behind it. Where we find nothing, the report says that too, which is often the more useful outcome for a listing agent.
Can you get out before our resolution window closes?
Tell us the deadline when you call and we will answer it on the phone. If the calendar doesn't allow it we say no then, rather than booking you and letting you discover it on day nine. What we won't do is publish a turnaround figure here that we would then have to apply to every roof, every metro, and every week of the year. Ask for your date and get a real answer.
Who owns the report, and can I send it to the other side?
It goes to whoever ordered and paid for it, and they can forward it to anyone they choose. We don't send a client's report to the opposing agent, the other brokerage, or a lender on our own initiative, and we don't keep a copy in circulation for the next buyer. If both sides want their own inspection, that's two inspections.
Will you put a repair number on it so we can write the amendment?
Yes, where the scope is knowable from what we examined. The quote is line-item and it ties back to the photographed finding, so the seller can see what they are paying for and the buyer can see what they are getting. Where a scope genuinely cannot be fixed without opening something up, you get a defined next step rather than a number we invented to be helpful.
Do you re-inspect after the seller has the repair done?
Yes. We go back, document the corrected condition against the original photographs, and put that in writing for the file. If the repair was not actually done, or was done in a way that doesn't correct the finding, the second report says that. That is the point of having the first one.
How is this different from what the general home inspector already did?
Scope and equipment. A home inspection covers the chimney at Level 1 — visible, readily accessible, no camera up the flue and usually no time on the roof. What we do on a transaction is Level 2 as NFPA 211 defines it, which brings in the flue interior on camera and the accessible exterior components. It is a narrower job done deeper, and it exists precisely because the broader inspection is right to hand it off.
The fireplace was converted to gas logs, or sealed off entirely. Does that change anything?
It changes what matters. A converted appliance raises questions about the liner size for the appliance actually installed, the venting path, and whether the damper was clamped as it should have been. A sealed or decommissioned fireplace mostly raises questions about water: a chase or crown left open still lets the structure take on water whether or not anyone burns in it. We examine what is there and describe it. Any gas connection is made or approved by someone licensed to do that work under the local code.
Do you already work with agents in this market?
Not in any organized way, and we are not going to manufacture a list of names to suggest otherwise. Transaction work reaches us one house at a time. What we can put in front of you is the method described on this page, the license and insurance record on our licenses page, and the fact that our technicians hold CSIA certification you can verify independently. If you want to test us at low stakes, send a listing that is not under contract yet and read the report before you ever put us on a deadline.
Talk to a CSIA-certified expert today.
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Active leak, animal in flue, post-fire damage, or smoke event? Real humans on the line 7 AM to 12 AM every day — replies in under 2 minutes. Tech dispatch within 2 hours during business hours, subject to crew availability after-hours.
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