Chimney Inspections in Pico Rivera, CA

Chimney Inspections for Pico Rivera Homeowners

Pico Rivera sits between the San Gabriel and Rio Hondo rivers, and that position defines the work. The city formed from the Pico and Rivera communities and built out heavily in the 1950s as families moved into the tracts on the old ranch land. Two local factors matter for chimneys. The first is groundwater and the river bottom soils: ground moisture here is higher than in the drier tracts to the south, and persistently damp footings under a heavy masonry stack encourage rising damp and salt bloom in the lower brickwork, which we find on the chimney breast inside houses as often as outside. The second is the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, whose epicentre was effectively next door. Pico Rivera took real masonry damage in that event, and as in Whittier a good deal of it was repaired at the surface without anyone examining the flue liner. Between damp working from the bottom and old shear cracks left from the top, a camera survey tells you far more here than an exterior look ever will.

River-bottom soils and high ground moisture, plus unresolved 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake damage in 1950s masonry.

An inspection is the only part of this trade that tells you something you could not otherwise know. A flue can look perfectly sound from the hearth and be cracked through two storeys up. That matters more here than in most of the country because of what the ground does. The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake put hairline shears through masonry across the Whittier and Pico Rivera area that have quietly widened ever since, and the Portuguese Bend slide is still moving under parts of Rancho Palos Verdes today. Add the ordinary rate of settlement in the postwar tracts built on old dairy and farm land in Cerritos, Artesia and Norwalk, and cracked flue tiles are common in houses that have never had a bad fire. We also do a lot of point-of-sale work. A Level 2 inspection is what a lender, an insurer or a careful buyer's agent will ask for, and a written report with photographs settles the question rather than starting an argument.