Lucky Sully Chimney Sweep

This is a video of a home in San Juan Capistrano that is approximately 40 years old.  All 3 chimneys had severe cracks and gaps in the chimney flue.  This is a severe fire hazard if the fireplaces are used to burn wood or gas fires. 

If you are purchasing a home that was built over 20 years ago, don’t take a chance that the chimney will not have gaps. Approximately 40% of the homes that were built in the 1980s and earlier have cracks and gaps within the chimney flues.  Regular home inspectors do not inspect the chimneys with a video camera and as a result most of the cracks are not detected.  Approximately 15,000 homes per year in the U.S. have home fires which start in the fireplace/chimney.

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This is repair we did 4 years ago.

We didn’t rebuild the chimney, but patched it. If you look closely, we colored the patch in bricks to make repair nearly unnoticeable. This is a relatively inexpensive repair, much less than rebuild. With regular maintenance this chimney could last quite a while, but without maintenance, water could continue to get in, moisten the rebar which rusts, expands and breaks bricks and mortar joints.

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In situations where 2 flues occupy one chimney, we like to install multi-flue chimney caps. I think they look tidier that having 2 caps jammed together often at slightly different heights. This one is black galvanized, but we can get them in copper or stainless steel which are recommended for homes within 5 miles of ocean.

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We get calls frequently for bees in chimney.

All to often home owners have them exterminated, rather than finding a real beekeeper. Once you have bees relocated, we have solutions to help keep bees from returning, specifically, if you have a masonry chimney.

It’s called a top mounted chimney damper. Works great.

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On February 8, 2024 I spoke to a new customer who had a harrowing experience.  She lives in an upscale neighborhood in Southern Orange County.  She saw an ad on her neighborhood social media page that advertised 30% of chimney sweeps and the company name was Lucky Sully Chimney Sweep.  We are the only licensed contractor with that name.

She responded to the ad and when the chimney sweeper arrived, she saw he was driving a Prius.  The price she was quoted was $175 (with the 30% discount), but this man (said his name was Ray) said the price was $300 and wanted cash.  He was unable to provide a business card or any stationery with the business name.  He said he was from AM Janitorial Services but had no business card or license.  He said the Lucky Sully bid the job out to him.  We DO NOT bid out jobs to other companies.

If we feel the job is not something we can do, we may refer homeowners to other legitimate chimney companies, but it is up the the homeowner to contact those companies.  We do not receive commissions from these companies.  We do NOT advertise on neighborhood social media sites although some of our customers have written about us on some of these neighborhood pages.

If you find out about us from an ad on social media, please call our main number 714-342-7415 or email us at luckysullysweep@aol.com if you want to do business with us.

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We have found a lot of homes from 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s have cracked flues which are a fire hazard.

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We are finding a significant percentage of chimneys from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, including this one from 1985 have cracks and voids in the chimney flue which can cause a house fire. Recently, Rachel Ray’s home burnt down for this reason, even though she was getting her chimneys swept. If you have not had a video inspection of your chimney in the last few years, it might be worth checking on it. Learn more at Chimney Inspections.

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1957 Costa Mesa home with voids between chimney tiles in the flue. This was found by doing a chimney inspection. Learn more about our chimney inspection service.

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Removing tons of beehive behind fireplace walls.

If you don’t have a chimney cap on your chimney, one of the possible results is that you can end up with a beehive in your chimney.

You will then need to get an exterminator to kill the hive (or a specialist to remove it) and then have it cleaned. The price of these services is several times the cost of a cap/spark arrestor.

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