Chimney Caps and Crowns in Carson, CA

Chimney Caps and Crowns for Carson Homeowners

Carson incorporated in 1968 and most of its housing dates from the fifteen years either side of that, which puts it in an interesting middle ground for us. It is late enough that a substantial share of the fireplaces are factory-built metal units in framed chases rather than full masonry, and early enough that those units are now well past the age where refractory panels and chase covers need looking at. The city also sits close to the harbour and the refineries, so it gets the same salt-laden air that works on Long Beach, with the corrosion of galvanised caps, chase covers and dampers that comes with it. Ground conditions are the other Carson particular: parts of the city are built on filled and reclaimed land with a documented history of subsidence in the wider harbour area, so differential settlement is a live consideration on masonry stacks here rather than a theoretical one. Where we find a gap opening between chimney and wall in Carson, we want a camera down the flue before anybody quotes cosmetic repointing.

1960s-70s housing with many factory-built systems, harbour salt-air corrosion, and settlement on filled ground.

An uncapped flue in Los Angeles County is an open pipe into your house, and it fills up. We pull nesting material out of chimneys here in every month of the year, because the birds and roof rats never get a winter off. The other thing an open flue takes is rain, straight down onto the damper and the smoke shelf, which is why so many dampers in this county are rusted solid. The crown matters just as much and gets thought about far less. A crown is meant to be a sloped, reinforced slab with an overhang and a drip edge that throws water clear of the brick. What most houses actually have is a flat trowelled smear of ordinary mortar, which cracks within a decade and then funnels water into the top of the stack. There is a fire dimension too: in the hillside and canyon parts of this county a spark arrestor screen is not optional, and a great many older chimneys either never had one or have one that has rusted through.