Homeowner Guide · DeKalb, IL
Chimney Maintenance Tips
What you can do between professional visits to burn safely and keep your chimney in good shape — plus the jobs that are worth leaving to a pro.
A yearly professional sweep and inspection is the foundation of chimney safety, but there’s plenty a DeKalb-area homeowner can do between visits to burn cleaner and catch problems early. Here’s our practical, no-nonsense guide.
Burn only seasoned, dry wood
Wet or unseasoned wood burns cool and smoky, which lays down creosote far faster. Season firewood at least six months to a year, split and stacked off the ground under cover. Hardwoods like oak and hickory burn longer and cleaner than soft, resinous woods. Dry wood is the single biggest thing you control.
Build hotter, cleaner fires
Small, hot fires produce less creosote than large, smoldering ones. Give the fire enough air to burn briskly rather than damping it down to a slow smoke. A hot flue drafts better and stays cleaner.
Watch for warning signs
Between sweeps, keep an eye (and nose) out for: a strong campfire or tar smell when the fireplace isn’t in use, smoke spilling into the room, black soot flakes building up, white staining on the exterior brick, or a damper that’s hard to open. Any of these is worth a call. Our chimney problem symptoms guide explains what each one means.
Keep the area safe
Maintain a clear, non-combustible hearth in front of the fireplace, use a sturdy screen or glass doors, and never leave a fire unattended. Let ashes cool fully and store them in a metal container outside, away from the house — buried embers can stay hot for days.
Test your alarms
Put a working smoke alarm and a carbon-monoxide alarm on every level of the home, and test them monthly. A CO alarm is especially important with any fuel-burning appliance — it’s the backstop that catches a venting problem you can’t see or smell.
Leave these to a professional
Some jobs aren’t DIY. Climbing on the roof, sweeping the full flue, camera inspections, any masonry or crown repair, relining, and especially anything involving a gas valve or gas line should be done by a trained technician. If you ever smell gas, leave and call us or your utility from outside.
When it’s time for your annual service, call (815) 449-4265 or send a request — we’ll handle the parts that shouldn’t be a homeowner’s job.
Negative air pressure: when the house is fighting the chimney
A chimney only works if air can get into the room to replace what goes up the flue. In a tight, well-insulated house the exhaust appliances compete for that air, and the biggest fan wins. A modern range hood can pull 400 to 900 cubic feet per minute, a clothes dryer around 150, each bath fan 50 to 100, and a furnace or water heater that is not sealed-combustion draws its own share from the basement. Run two of those while a fire is burning and the house drops below outdoor pressure — the fireplace becomes the easiest path for makeup air, and the smoke comes down instead of up.
A quick test: with the fire out and the damper open, hold a lit incense stick or a strip of tissue at the throat and switch the kitchen hood on. If the smoke or tissue is pulled into the room, the house is depressurizing. Try it again with a nearby window open an inch; if that reverses the flow, you have your answer.
What helps: open a window near the fireplace for the first half hour, hold off on the dryer and hood while the fire is young, and keep basement doors open so the furnace is not pulling from the same space. For a permanent fix, an outside-air kit ducted to the firebox or a passive makeup-air inlet supplies combustion air without the fireplace having to steal it.