Santa's Friend Chimney Service Blog

Waterproofing a Chimney

You have probably heard us warn you about the dangers of water penetration of your chimney. Water can cause so much damage and deterioration that the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) has named water as the biggest enemy of masonry chimneys. To protect your chimney from water penetration damage, there are several preventive measures you can take, including installing a good quality chimney cap on top as well as a customized flashing system around your chimney where it meets the roof. However, the best investment you can make to prevent water penetration of your chimney is to schedule a professional waterproofing treatment from Santa’s Friend Chimney Service. We are proud to offer this chimney maintenance service, and you can trust the ChimneySaver products we use to protect your chimney from water penetration. We would like to tell you more about the kind of damage water can do, along with what you can expect from our waterproofing service.

How can water damage my chimney so badly?

Water penetration can seriously deteriorate the masonry materials of your chimney. The bricks and mortar that your chimney is constructed from are very porous and naturally absorb water. Extensive damage can occur when the water that is absorbed and trapped inside these masonry materials freezes and expands in the winter. As this water thaws, it causes the bricks and mortar joints to crack and break apart. Repeated freeze/thaw cycles can lead to bricks and mortar joints falling out of the chimney, which can lead to serious structural problems. Not only does water cause this type of damage, but it can also cause rusting damage to the metal components of your chimney, including the liner and damper. Sometimes, water can even leak into your home to create water stains in the ceilings and walls.

What can I expect from a waterproofing treatment from Santa’s Friend Chimney Service?

Before our CSIA-certified chimney technicians apply the waterproofing treatment to your chimney, we will examine your chimney to see what type of formula we will use. Generally we use a water-based formula, but if you have had a waterproofing treatment done in the past, we will have to use a solvent-based formula. After we clean the bricks with brushes, we will then apply a coating of this water repellent formula to your entire chimney. This 100% vapor-permeable waterproofing formula will create a barrier against water penetration of your chimney, while still allowing vapors to escape from the bricks and mortar. This environmentally-friendly product will resist mildew, mold, and fungus and reduce water penetration by 99.9 percent. You will also receive a 10-year warranty, which means the bricks and mortar of your chimney will be protected from water leaks for a decade.

Prolong the life of your masonry chimney. Contact us at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to schedule an appointment for our waterproofing services today.

Proudly Serving Jackson, Mississippi

Since 1988, Santa’s Friend Chimney Service has been proud to serve the fireplace and chimney needs of residents of Jackson, Mississippi, and over the years, we have increased our service area to include the entire central Mississippi area. You cannot find a more experienced staff of chimney technicians in the whole state. Our chimney sweeps have been trained and certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) to maintain, repair, and install chimneys, fireplaces, stoves, inserts, and other heating appliances. We also provide dryer vent cleaning services as well as sell and install various chimney products, including chimney caps and chase covers. We would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the services we offer in the central Mississippi area.

FIREPLACE AND CHIMNEY SERVICES

The CSIA and other national fire safety organizations all recommend that you have your chimney professionally swept and inspected once a year. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service can take care of these tasks for you, and you can trust us to remove all of the hazardously flammable creosote from your chimney and to carefully inspect your chimney for blockages and other damage. We can also repair several common chimney problems, including relining your chimney with HeatShield or with a new stainless steel liner. We specialize in fixing leaky chimneys as well as in waterproofing your chimney to prevent water penetration from occurring.

DRYER VENT SERVICES

If you have never had your dryer vent professionally cleaned, you may want to contact Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to schedule an appointment for our services. The most important reason you should have this done is to reduce your risk of experiencing a clothes dryer fire. Lint, which is what clogs your vent, is so flammable that the Boy Scouts recommend using it as a fire starter, so you can imagine how dangerous a large accumulation of lint can be within your dryer vent. Our professional dryer vent cleaning services also will prolong the life of your dryer and save you energy and money on your utility bills.

CHIMNEY PRODUCTS & INSTALLS

In our warehouse, we keep an inventory of several important chimney components, including chimney caps, top-mounted dampers, bird screens, chase covers, mesh spark screens, and replacement firebox panels. Our CSIA-certified technicians can install all of these products for you so that they will work efficiently and safely. We also sell and install wood-burning fireplace inserts that can convert your older traditional fireplace into a more energy-efficient heating appliance.

If you live in Jackson, Mississippi or anywhere else in the central state area, contact us at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service for any of your fireplace and chimney needs. We are here to help you enjoy your fireplace, and you can trust us to do the best possible job.

It’s My Job: Chimney Sweep

My name is Jim Robinson, and I’m the owner of Santa’s Friend Chimney Service in Jackson.

Courtesy Greg Jenson/ The Clarion Ledger

I grew up in the Shiloh community between Brandon and Pelahatchie and still live here. In fact, I live on the house site of my great-grandfather, James Thomas Knight, whom I was named after.

I graduated from Brandon Academy and attended Mississippi State for two-and-a-half years. I grew up on a dairy farm, so I majored in dairy science at MSU. We had a fairly large family operation, but I knew I was ready for a career change. I had no idea in my wildest dreams it would turn out like it has!

To make a little extra money, I started selling firewood in the mid-‘80s.  One of my customers told me about cleaning the chimneys of the firewood customers. So one very hot Saturday afternoon in June 1988, I “cleaned“ four chimneys. I can look back now and see how unprofessional I was, starting out.

This rocked on a few years until 1994, when I first got certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America. Up until that time, I had no idea what a code book was. When you are CSIA certified, you become aware of proper clearances, codes, standards and practices as they relate to chimneys. I attended a National Chimney Sweep Guild convention shortly thereafter and saw the potential in this industry and, in 1996, I went full time.

Today, I have one full-time employee, Justin Perkins, a chimney sweep who has been CSIA certified since 2010. My wife, Terri, is also very involved in the office, and she is the one who came up with the name for our business!

We offer a wide range of services related to the chimney— of course, sweepings, but also masonry repair, firebox repair and rebuild if needed. Solving water leaks in chimneys is a big part of our business. We reline a lot of chimneys with stainless steel or, if the situation is conducive to it, we resurface the interior flue.

We also clean dryer vents. This is needed when the dryer is not located on an outside wall and the long vent to the outside collects lint. Over time the vent will restrict the airflow and overheat the dryer. As you can imagine, lint is very flammable.

One of the main services we specialize in is solving chimney problems, whether it is a performance problem with a smoking chimney or a smelly, stinking chimney. Both of these problems are very common and are directly related to indoor air quality.

It’s important to have a chimney cleaned regularly, because as the smoke cools going up the chimney, it condenses on the interior chimney walls as soot or creosote, which is flammable. Contrary to popular opinion, it doesn’t matter what type of firewood you use, as long as it is not treated wood and is dry.

There are a lot of variables, but generally it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to clean a chimney.  As a general rule, we sweep the chimneys from the bottom using a rotary drill, adding rods until it reaches the top. The attachments on the head can be either “Weed Eater” string for light deposits, steel cable for medium deposits or twist link chains for heavy, glazed creosote. The vast majority need the steel cable. If I have a question or concern about the flue, I have a video camera that will inspect every inch of the interior flue. It has the capability to capture the image, and we can email a report to the customer.

When we’re working, we always wear black, of course — it is a dirty job. We take precautions because soot and creosote are carcinogenic. We have a couple of methods for dust control and, of course, put tarps in front of the fireplace. We get comments regularly on how clean and neat we are.

The best part of this job, without a doubt, is the people I have met — customers and chimney sweeps — and the places we’ve been able to go. My customers are some of the finest people anywhere — as a general rule, anyway. By going to the NCSG convention almost every year, I’ve made very good friends with fellow chimney sweeps all across America. We are very unique in that we freely share information with each other, whether it be business practices or the latest code developments.

The most interesting was the trip in 2004 that Terri and I took to the International Chimney Sweep Festival in Santa Maria Maggiore, Italy. This is held every year in September in this small village in the northern Alps. It was started to commemorate the small children who were forced to work inside chimneys in the early to mid-1900s. Of course, they had no respirators, and a lot of them died from cancer before they were 25 years old.  During that week, there is a parade through the village with about 800 chimney sweeps dressed in traditional attire. Several countries are represented, with the lead person in the group carrying their country’s flag. Of the 800, probably 700 are German. You better believe it is a party with that many Germans!

We attended again in 2006 and in 2008 toured Europe with some chimney sweep friends.

The biggest challenge in my job is definitely having too much work from the middle of September until Christmas.— but, the rest of the year, the work load is just about right!