Chimney Inspections in Torrance, CA

Chimney Inspections for Torrance Homeowners

Torrance covers more chimney history than any other city on our list except Long Beach. Old Torrance was laid out in 1912 to an Olmsted brothers plan as a planned industrial town, and the brick houses that survive from that period are among the oldest structures we work on. Then come the enormous postwar tracts of the 1950s that filled the centre of the city, and the Hollywood Riviera and Walteria on the coastal side. The Riviera is where the work changes character: those properties take direct marine exposure, and the combination of salt air and near-constant humidity is hard on everything ferrous at the top of a chimney. We replace corroded caps, chase covers and flashing there constantly. Inland, in Southwood and the central tracts, the issue is more ordinary — 1950s crowns that were never more than a mortar wash, now cracked through. The Old Torrance brick is the interesting end of it, frequently unlined or lightly lined, and worth a camera survey before anyone lights a fire in it.

1912 Olmsted-planned brick in Old Torrance, 1950s tract crowns, and direct marine exposure in the Hollywood Riviera.

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.