Most homeowners can tell pretty quickly when something is amiss with their chimney. Maybe there are bricks missing, or perhaps smoke is billowing out where it should not be. What is harder to determine, at least for the average homeowner, is what sort of repairs or work your chimney actually needs. Sure, you could have a chimney company come out, take a look, and tell you what they recommend doing — but it is still nice to have an idea of what's going on. So here's a look at the most common types of chimney services and what each one involves.

Chimney Cleaning

If you are noticing a lot of smoke and odors in your home and there's a greasy buildup in your flue, this could indicate that your chimney simply needs cleaning. This should really be done every one to two years, anyways. To clean the chimney, your chimney technician will use a long device that looks similar to a broom. They may apply a specialized cleaner to remove more caked-on soot and creosote, too. Chimney cleaning should only take an hour or two.

Tuckpointing

If the chimney is losing bricks or if the mortar between the bricks seems to be working its way out, then you might need to have a service called tuckpointing performed. Tuckpointing basically involves chiseling the top layer of mortar out and then putting new mortar in its place. The new mortar will give the whole chimney a fresh new look, and it will also help keep the bricks in place, giving the chimney extra stability.

A New Chimney Liner

Most chimneys have an outer layer of brick, and then an inner layer of ceramic or some other strong material. This inner layer is called the chimney liner. If you ever see smoke leaking out from between the bricks of your chimney, the chimney probably needs a new chimney liner. Your chimney repair company can sometimes just place a new liner inside the existing, damaged liner. This keeps them from having to chip the old liner out, which can be a really time-consuming process.

The services above are three of the most common chimney services. Hopefully, you now have a bit more of an idea of what each service entails. If you have any questions, or if you would like to schedule an estimate, contact a chimney service in your area to make an appointment.