Category: Prefabricated Chimney

Streamlined Inspections & Summary Reports

2/5/2025

I’ve been involved in the chimney industry since the late ‘70s when my wife and I started our chimney sweeping business. Anyone who was a sweep during this time enjoyed a business that boomed during the fall and winter, then fell off in the spring and summer. How times have changed. In these early days, there were no criteria for chimney inspections. Chimney sweeps swept the chimney, maybe noted some issues to the homeowner about the soot level,and left. Litigation and insurance companies started to change the industry and were the basis for developing the industry’s Standard of Care.
Taking the NFPA 211 Annex and placing it into installation type.
One day, at the turn of the century, as I sat on my deck relaxing, my mind wandered back to the year 1998 when a bunch of guys and I drafted the Levels of Inspections, Degrees of Access, and the list of inspection items in Chapters 14 & 15 and in the NFPA 211 Annex. As I thought about how it would be incorporated into a chimney technician’s inspection, I realized it would be difficult for the technician to try to hit all the inspection items from memory. Additionally, some items would apply to one type of installation, but not all. Today, 25 years later, some chimney technicians are still missing inspection items from NFPA 211. It’s almost as if our industry Standard of Care slipped through our fingers. Is it because there are too many items for a technician to inspect? No, we've become lazy and pick and choose what we want. This led me to begin my 10,000 hours of creating what became the Flue and Hearth Notes™ inspection forms.
Different Installation Types.
Forty years ago, before NFPA 211’s Inspection criteria, an inspection form was created with a fireplace and a handful of inspection items to check. It was in triplicate form, and chimney sweeps used it for all types of installations. It was used for all chimneys. However, a fireplace inspection differs dramatically from a chimney serving a gas water heater and an oil boiler venting into one flue. Unfortunately, some chimney sweeps and technicians still use these forms. Twenty years ago, I envisioned building a comprehensive inspection form Based on NFPA 211 but for specific applications such as a Masonry Fireplace, a Prefabricated Fireplace, a Masonry Thimble Chimney Serving an Appliance(s), and a Prefabricated Chimney Serving an Appliance(s). Although these installations all have chimneys, each chimney vents a different type of heating unit or fireplace. In addition, the fuels can differ: LP gas, natural gas, oil, coal, wood, and pellets.
No installations are the same, but you will see the same types of defects.
Every installation is unique, but the types of defects are the same across the board. For instance, defects can range from vertical and horizontal cracks, protruding mortar joints, stacked liners, and misaligned liners to missing chimney liners.
Start creating a Unity track: Defining what’s important.
One of my all-time favorite stories is one Tom Grandy shared about a trip to the dentist. As with any dental visit, almost everyone gets the lecture about how to floss twice a day, and we are given the same demonstration of how to floss each time we brush. One day, after a lecture on flossing, Tom shared what we all feel, and the dentists regularly hear. “I hate to floss!” I suppose that day, the dentist had heard it for the umpteenth time, and he was ready. He responded, “OK, just do the teeth you want to keep!” This has similarities to our industry. A technician can’t just pick and choose what they want to search for (the insurable cracked flue liner). All inspection items must be investigated (NFPA 211, Chapters 14, 15, and the Annex). I felt pulling all this together would create unity on chimney inspections in our industry since it didn’t seem to be happening.
The start of the Flue and Hearth Notes™ (10,000 hours) of form building and why and how they are built.
I began with the vision of a unified form. I grouped inspection items with installation types. I further included an area for defects related to specific areas, such as a chimney liner. I grouped inspection items per area where they were found in the chimney or fireplace. I included information on appliances. I had professionally created drawings and pulled everything into multiple inspection report forms. Recently, I added more forms to the offering and broke them down by fuels. We now have eight form types: Masonry Fireplace, Masonry Fireplace with a Hearth Stove, Masonry Fireplace with an Insert, Masonry Thimble Chimney Serving a Solid Fuel Appliance, Masonry Thimble Chimney Serving a Liquid Fuel Appliance(s), Prefabricated Chimney Serving a Solid Fuel Appliance, Prefabricated Chimney Serving a Liquid Fuel(s) Appliance, and Prefabricated Fireplace and Chimney. We have Level I and Level II forms for each installation type. That’s 16 forms in total. But then, we went a step further.

A man and woman stand next to their vehicle with chimney sweeping equipment.

Tom and Esther Urban prepare to sweep chimneys in 1980. They saw the need to manufacture a chimney camera and started making them over 40 years ago.

A man is leaning over the steering wheel, looking scared and exhausted.

Trying to remember all of the inspection items in NFPA 211 Chapters 14 & 15, and the Annex can be tough even for seasoned veterans.

This form has a fireplace drawing and a handful of inspection items.

This outdated inspection form was created in the 1980s. It has been outdated for several years. It does not cover all of the inspection items in the NFPA 211 Standard, Chapters 14 & 15, and the Annex. Also, it is not a "catch all" form. It specifically targets a fireplace.

The inspection form lists multiple inspection items by transition of the fireplace. It includes a fireplace drawing. It is a Level I form.

The Flue & Hearth Notes™ Inspection forms is a Do-Confirm checklist with questions based on NFPA 211, Chapters 14 & 15 and the Annex. This is the form for a Level 1 inspection. A Level 2 form is also available. There are eight form types as listed in the image below. Click the image for more information.

There are 8 installation types available for these forms: Masonry Fireplace & Chimney, Masonry Fireplace & Chimney Serving a Hearth Stove, Masonry Fireplace & Chimney Serving an Insert, Masonry Thimble Chimney Serving a Solid Fuel Appliance, Masonry Thimble Chimney Serving a Liquid Fuel(s) Appliance(s), Prefabricated Fireplace & Chimney, Prefabricated Chimney Serving a Solid Fuel Appliance, Prefabricated Chimney Serving a Liquid Fuel(s) Appliance(s). For each type there is Level 1 and Level 2 forms.

Summary Forms
We brainstormed one day and came up with the need for a new type of form. We call this form a Summary Form. These forms are available in the same installation types listed above. These forms are unique because we further break the installation into sections, as featured below. Within these sections is a color-coded area key to check whether it’s in Operational Ready Condition, Operational Deficient Condition, or Hazardous Condition. Documenting your findings this way makes sense. For instance, the flue liners “C” may be damaged. Based on this finding, condemning the whole chimney and telling the customer it is hazardous is incorrect. Maybe areas D-H are in Operational-Ready Condition. Maybe areas A & B are in Operational Deficient Condition – meaning the crown is cracked, needs some repairs, and the chimney from the roof up (B) needs tuckpointing. It’s great to get good news with the not-so-good news.

There are 8 fireplace drawings with different transition areas highlighted.

There are 8 installation types of Summary Forms. These forms break down the installation by transitions. They are designed as an easy-to-understand form for the customers. Included is Conditions featuring: Operational Ready, Operational Deficient, and Hazardous Conditions. There are two pages for drawings that correspond to the notes page with letters. For more information, please click the image above.

Our Summary Forms are designed for your customer. It breaks out the conditions of each section, where you can check off the condition to the left of the description.

Another beautiful part of this form is the explanations included for the three conditions. If used correctly, these forms will convey to the homeowner the findings of your inspection in an easy-to-understand format. In addition to explaining the conditions, they include a cover page where your information and receipt can be placed.
Start when business is good, so you are ready when the slow times start!
Suppose you put the principles of inspection unity into practice now. When the slow times come, your business will thrive with forward-scheduling items like tuckpointing (Operational Deficient) that can wait for repairs. Your team will perform their inspections using the NFPA 211 Inspection Items, and they will all be on the same page. Your technicians will evaluate the entire chimney per the forms (and Industry Standard of Care), finding defects and verifying conditions. They can communicate the areas of their chimney that are in Operational-Ready Condition. Some may need fixing but not immediately (Operational-Deficient), and some may need repair before further use (Hazardous Condition).
You stop trying to sell the job when the job can sell itself without using scare tactics of condemning an entire chimney. If you can continue to do what you’re doing, you will quickly put yourselves and the industry out of business.
Standardizing inspection requirements across the board puts everyone on a level playing field. Everyone should already be checking everything outlined in NFPA 211. Some companies do and are very diligent about it. Unity and standardization are the keys to moving your business and this industry forward. Thanks for listening. Tom

A form shows transition points in the chimney which match up the copy with the images.

These images show an inspection using the Summary Forms. Each image follows the transition point of the chimney which corresponds to the transition location with letters. It's easy to match up the letter on the copy to the letter on the image.

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