Chimney Relining in Signal Hill, CA

Chimney Relining for Signal Hill Homeowners

Signal Hill is small, and it is unlike anywhere else we work. The city sits on a genuine hill with a working oil field still on it, so you get 1920s bungalows on the lower slopes, newer hillside and view properties climbing the grade, and pumping units alongside residential streets. Two things drive our work here. The first is wind. The crest is exposed in every direction, and Santa Ana conditions put real load on anything standing above a roofline. We see caps lifted clean off flues in Signal Hill that were only ever friction-fitted, which is why we mechanically fix every cap we install up here. The second is access and slope. Steep driveways, split-level roofs and short setbacks mean roof work needs planning rather than improvising. The older bungalows below the crest have the same unlined and lightly-lined brick you find in adjacent Long Beach, and being this close to the water they get the same salt-air corrosion on caps, dampers and flashing.

Exposed hilltop wind loading, steep split-level roof access, and salt-air corrosion on older brick near the Long Beach line.

A liner is what stands between the fire and the timber framing of your house, and a large number of chimneys in this county do not have a working one. Anything built here before about 1930 — much of Old Torrance, Uptown Whittier, the Long Beach bungalow neighbourhoods — was commonly built with no liner at all, just brick against brick. Later houses got terracotta tile, which is sound until the ground moves, and the ground here moves. Cracked and displaced tiles are the single most common serious defect we find on camera. The other driver is appliance change. Every gas conversion, every wood stove and every fireplace insert changes the volume and the temperature of what the flue has to carry, and an original masonry flue is nearly always far too large for a modern appliance. An oversized flue runs cool, which condenses acidic moisture inside the chimney and destroys it from within faster than any fire would.