Gas Fireplace Service in Whittier, CA

Gas Fireplace Service for Whittier Homeowners

Whittier has the oldest and best housing stock in our service area and, for a chimney company, the most consequential recent history. Uptown and the streets around Whittier College carry Craftsman and early brick houses from the 1900s and 1910s, much of it unlined. Then there is the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. That event did enormous damage to unreinforced masonry here, and a great deal of it was repaired cosmetically — the visible crack pointed up, the stack left standing, the flue inside never examined. We still find the consequences on camera nearly forty years later: shear cracks running through terracotta liners in houses whose owners have no idea anything is wrong, because from the hearth it looks fine. Up in Friendly Hills and College Hills the picture is different again, with 1960s and 1970s hillside houses, tall exposed stacks catching wind off the ridge, and access that frequently needs planning. If you own pre-1960 brick in Whittier and it has not had a camera survey, that is the single thing worth doing.

Pre-1930 unlined brick in Uptown, unresolved 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake damage, and exposed hillside stacks in Friendly Hills.

Gas is now the majority of what burns in Los Angeles County fireplaces, and it has quietly become the part of the trade with the least maintenance attention. People believe a gas fireplace is maintenance-free because there is no ash to sweep. In reality gas produces roughly a gallon of water vapour for every hundred thousand BTU, and that moisture condenses inside the flue and rusts dampers, liners and fireboxes from the inside. Then there is the log set itself. Ceramic logs are positioned by the manufacturer to specific coordinates, and a set that has been rearranged by a housekeeper, a previous owner or a well-meaning relative will burn with flame impingement and produce carbon monoxide and soot. We find rearranged log sets constantly. Add pilot assemblies clogged with fifteen years of dust in a dry, dusty basin climate, and thermocouples at the end of their life, and most gas fireplaces here are overdue rather than fine.