Is a bird's nest or animal in the chimney a fire or carbon monoxide hazard?
Flat Rock's historic homes are especially exposed to this. Houses dating to the 1800s were built with oversized open masonry fireplaces and wide clay flues — the roomiest, most inviting nesting sites in the county. Packed with a season's debris, that big flue is tinder for a chimney fire near the top, and its aging, cracked liner makes it easy for a blockage to leak carbon monoxide into the living space.
Big old flues are big old invitations
The grand fireplaces that give Historic Flat Rock and the homes around Kanuga and Highland Lake their character are a double-edged thing. A wide, tall clay flue drafts beautifully — and it's the most attractive nesting cavity a chimney swift, squirrel, or raccoon could ask for. The larger the opening, the more nesting material and leaf-fall it can hold before you'd ever notice, and the more tinder is waiting when you strike that first match in the fall.
Aging liners turn a blockage into a CO leak
Century-old clay flue liners crack and gap with age and freeze-thaw, and that matters when something's blocking the draft. Combustion gases that should rise and exit can instead find their way through those gaps — or, with the draft choked, roll straight back into the room. On the many homes here that have moved to natural-gas logs or a gas insert for cleaner, easier heat, that carbon monoxide is invisible and odorless. A CO detector and an annual look up the flue are cheap protection for an irreplaceable house.
Protect the character, close the door
Preserving these homes and making them safe aren't at odds. We clear the flue, reline where the old clay has failed, and cap it with an animal screen and spark arrestor that keeps wildlife and rain out without changing the roofline. A sealed insert can even end the cold-air draftiness these big open hearths pull into a room while keeping the mantel you love. We pull the Henderson County permit on the work. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Flat Rock
We install and service fireplaces throughout Flat Rock and the rest of Henderson County — just 30 minutes south from our Asheville-area showroom.