[ 00:00:01,080 ]Let’s go!

[ 00:00:22,540 ]welcome into behind the brand podcast i’m adam hayes to my writers my co-host bob payton and right here with us today is chris cox from chimney solutions indiana welcome in thanks appreciate it yeah absolutely all right tell us about chimney solutions chimney solutions indiana so um Chimney Solutions actually started in Atlanta, Georgia, 1997, and became a very well-known chimney suite. We’re turnkey residential chimney and fire. place company, full service. And I started our branch in 2016 here in Indianapolis. I’m from Indiana. So it was a natural transition for me and my family. And yeah, so our office is currently on 86th and Lafayette Road here in Indy. And the big white barn, yeah, the big white barn it’s got our logo on the front, it’s great, it’s a great location, very blessed to pick that up, but um, is that the location of the showroom as well?

[ 00:01:17,530 ]Yes, okay, yep. So we have a full showroom inside, wood burning in gas products, electric. Um, we don’t. We really try to have more middle of the road and high end fireplaces as opposed to builder grade products, which are extremely common, work well. They’ve been working for 20 years, but we try to just have a little bit better of an offering and fewer options. But yeah, we have a full showroom in the office in the building and very proud of that. Very excited about it. That’s awesome. Are you one of the only locations then that has a showroom? One of the yeah yeah locally anyway we’re the only chimney solutions um has a showroom they’re working on one down there in atlanta okay i’m making some good progress on that but we uh

[ 00:02:05,460 ]i took the dive you know i just you know we had this awesome location yeah great road frontage we had the space we had the square footage uh we flipped the office and renovated the inside and i was like this is a perfect spot like i can’t not put fireplaces on the floor right so we did that and got that fully functional last year i got to see it during the build phase and then eventually when it was finished It’s an interesting building, right? Yes. It’s got a little strange shape inside and out. It’s not square corners. Lots of angles. lots of angles very it’s like oh it’s a it was an old building station and then they built a post frame like pole barn style building around it so i’ve got like block walls and then you’ve got you know just siding and it’s a whole mix of construction methods but it works that’s interesting It’s a great spot, though.

[ 00:02:59,030 ]So from a regulation standpoint, are there any regulations that shape the chimney and the fireplace industry in general that people should know about? That’s a good question. And it’s something that has been more a part of our industry in the last decade than, you know, I mean, when I grew up with a wood stove in the house, my dad would get that thing, cherry, you know, like that’s an exaggeration, but it’d be January and we’d all be sitting in the living room. You know, shorts on and no shirt, just sweating. It’s like, Dad, you got to turn this thing down. Your dad turned it into a sauna? Yeah. But that’s how we heated the house. And there were no restrictions. This was an old school wood stove that just had a damper in the flue.

[ 00:03:42,440 ]And a pipe. Yep. Yep. And go right up into the chimney liner. Well, now the EPA has really tightened down on what it means to have a functional wood-burning fireplace in your house. And what that looks like is that we don’t control the gases that leave anymore. We control the air that comes into the stove so we really regulate the amount of air that can come into a fire into a sealed system. Okay, and the byproducts of combustion, the smoke, there’s water vapor, there’s carbon, there’s uncombusted elements there. A lot of times those get recombusted and burnt up for cleaner efficiency of the stove. But then it passes through like a catalyst. And that’ll clean up. It’ll create another combustion cycle.

[ 00:04:27,860 ]Clean up those gases so now you can have this awesome heater in your house and you don’t even see any smoke leaving your chimney. It’s it’s clean. There’s you know two grams of particulate an hour. Um, they get them down to very very low levels, which is really good in one sense. Conversely, on the other end of the coin or the other side of the coin, you have typically a smaller heater. And the firebox is a little smaller. And so you’re burning less wood, you’re more efficient. But they don’t. They don’t always heat like the old ones used to. Right, it doesn’t just radiate—yes, they do a very very good job. And you can still efficiently heat your house with a wood-burning heater or wood-burning stove. But they’re the old-school stuff.

[ 00:05:14,753 ]It’s two totally different animals. Yeah, right. Does the catalyst last a lifetime, or does it have to be changed? Or usually, it has to be swapped out every 10 years or so? Really, there are some companies like Blaze King, they’re made in Walla Walla, Washington, fantastic fireplace manufacturer. They specialize in wood burning stoves and their catalyst has some metallic alloys, kind of mixed into it. Don’t hold me to this. I think I want to say they have a lifetime warranty on those. Wouldn’t surprise me. One of the only ones that I know of. Wow. Yeah. That’s impressive. Yeah. standpoint of someone with an existing fireplace that doesn’t have that you know in their system, are they still like grandfathered in to be able to use their existing system without having to meet some federal criteria of having that?

[ 00:06:05,000 ]There’s really not a lot of teeth in the law. If the EPA says, ‘Hey, here’s the standard,’ and you guys cannot. You know the the the vendors the manufacturers the installers we’re not allowed technically to sell these old stoves that don’t meet standards anymore, which again, like, that’s been helpful for the industry and helpful for the environment. But if I’m a homeowner and I’m burning wood in that old stove from the 60s or 70s, it’s a free-for-all. Yeah. Like, you’re heating your home and nobody’s going to come knocking and say, ‘Hey, you got to give that up.’ Now, when you switch insurance carriers, they’re going to ask. A lot of times we go do inspections for homeowners that, you know. That’s good to know. New homeowner policies. Yep.

[ 00:06:44,410 ]Yep, that happens. And, you know, sometimes we will reline an old stove to make it more efficient, make it safer. We technically don’t sell the old ones anymore because we’re legally not allowed to. So that’s an example of some government play. But you can service them. Oh, yeah. You service them all the time. Because if I think about it from this perspective, you know, let’s say you have an old wood burner in your house. Um, on a wood stove and you’ve been using it for years, it’s been fine, it’s been great, and it’s still in great condition. You have it serviced every year. I walk into the house and I say, ‘Adam, this is filthy. Let’s get it cleaned up.’ You know, we clean it out, we change a few parts, maybe we put a new liner on there, maybe we change the cap.

[ 00:07:24,910 ]When I leave, I can sleep good at night, knowing that you’ve made a safer installation. The fire’s never safe. Than you had before. Yeah, it’s an open flame. Yeah, I’m telling you, you can burn a fire on your floor in your house, you know? So it’s never safe, but at the same time, you have a better chance of long-term use of the stove. You’re going to heat your home more efficiently. It’s just— it’s a better situation than when we arrived. So would I love to see you buy a new fireplace? Yeah, but if that’s not your best interest, that’s up to you. Yeah, and I’m here to serve the homeowner. So this is the same thing applied to a firebox. It’s just an open fireplace. How does that work?

[ 00:08:01,770 ]That’s the funny thing about you’ve been to my house. So I know what the part of the answer is. That’s the funny thing about the EPA’s regulations. It’s you know, not everybody has a wood stove. Right. So if you have an open wood-burning fireplace, it’s essentially kind of worse than having the stove, right? I mean, you’re not getting the fuel as hot. I guess. It’s not the same type of heater. It’s a totally different thing. But an open fireplace is going to need a good bit of maintenance. It’s going to need swept every year, just like a wood stove, but yeah, it’s a totally different thing. And people with wood stoves tend to be more heavy users, right? So they’re going to need more maintenance and more service and cleanings.

[ 00:08:43,590 ]Somebody with a wood-burning fireplace might be more of a recreational burner, yeah, okay. So they’re just burning on holidays, families in town, aesthetic more than it is function. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So people aren’t typically heating their homes with a wood-burning fireplace, but they are with a wood-burning stove. Is that kind of the essence of it? Yes. Yes. Yes. And could you get an insert for a wood stove that would insert into, you know. The existing wood burnings, uh, fireplace. Yeah, absolutely. He tried to sell me one. I did. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you can. You put a wood-burning stove inside of a masonry fireplace. You have a factory-built fireplace that usually—spec homes, or kid homes, or just even just normal everyday custom homes, too.

[ 00:09:33,870 ]They will put in a factory-built fireplace and you’re not really supposed to put a wood burner in there. Right? Most builders aren’t even doing masonry chimneys anymore; masonry fireplaces it’s too expensive to produce. Yeah, you know, customers don’t want to do that. Nice marble either— a marble slab or something, or just literally drywall. Oh man, yeah. We’ll spend tens of thousands to make my hearth and my surround and my fireplace look amazing. But you put a five hundred dollar box behind all that beautiful marble. Wow, and it’s a travesty. It really is. You got a six-minute, you know, a six hundred thousand dollar home. Uh, with three fireplaces. And those fireplaces cost a total of you know, five six thousand dollars. Because they’re builder grade products that serve a purpose.

[ 00:10:19,750 ]But you know, it’s like you have that nice of a home, and you invest in a couple of boxwoods and hostas for landscaping in front of the front door. It doesn’t match. So when we talk about home value, the fireplace will add quite a bit of value. You just have to pick the right one and you have to have a qualified installer. A professional installer, not just listening to your builder talk or not just listening to your previous experience with a bad fireplace at your old home. You want to get in front of somebody that represents good brands. That installs good quality fireplaces. Awesome. Nice. I had a question and then it totally scared me. Chinese. Not the box itself, but I know like mine. I’m probably looking at a rebuild, right?

[ 00:11:14,740 ]You went through and did the whole inspection. Tell homeowners, people that do have a fireplace, our house was built in the 70s, maybe somebody’s in the 80s or 90s, but it’s the traditional brick stack. What should they be looking for? Yeah, chimneys have the unfortunate they’re exposed to the weather on all four sides above the roof. You know, you think about brick homes, like, let’s just think about a single-story ranch-style house, brick or limestone. They’re usually in fantastic condition. They were really well built, and the brick and the block and the stone on the side of the house don’t take much of a beating. It’s protected by the roof, protected by the gutters, overhang. But that chimney, that poor chimney, has to endure spring, summer, winter, fall.

[ 00:12:07,490 ]Right there, you know, it takes a beating. So that masonry can deteriorate quite a bit. Case in point, Bob’s poor chimney. I’m probably on a website. I’ve got a poor chimney. At my old house too. I guarantee it. Yeah. So yeah, it’s the bricks can crack. Did you know a brick can hold a cup and a half of water? Yeah. Wow. Yes. Brick can hold a cup and a half of water— that’s a lot. Imagine now stacking that up, yeah. And imagine all the rain we’ve had, you know, even slow drizzle over the period of three or four cloudy days. That brick doesn’t have time to dry out, and so you get a leak that’s produced in the house, and and then you got— you know— the winter.

[ 00:12:46,890 ]You’ve got all those freeze-thaw cycles, so the bricks absorb the water, it freezes. Brick pops. Wow. Face will fall off. Yeah, we call that spalling. So the brick will deteriorate in place. And then, the only way to fix it is to take the brick out and replace it— that single brick. Or, if it needs to, you rebuild the top half bottom half. We can surgically remove bricks and replace them, keeping somebody from having to do a full rebuild. Sometimes, 30–40% of the chimney is bad. I know. As soon as I start cutting into this thing, it’s going to fall apart. You have this domino effect where all the bricks— sunshine parts—yes, that’s something you don’t necessarily know until you get into it. Or is that something you can predict sometimes?

[ 00:13:33,510 ]We can. We can usually predict it, though. Okay, yeah, sometimes it does happen. It’s like—wow! This thing’s worse than we thought. Right? If your chimney’s painted, yeah, it’s probably a lot worse than you think. Wow! Brick likes to breathe. It’s got to breathe. Yeah, you know. And you can put a water repellent on brick that keeps it absorbing water, but it still allows the air to pass through and for it to breathe and dry out. If you’ve got paint on There it’s like putting a rain jacket on that thing and sure, it repels water but then the brick holds it; it can’t breathe and it just it rots. That it’s weird to say that a brick can rot, but it like rots underneath of that paint.

[ 00:14:10,260 ]So get in there and we’ll start cutting out bricks on this painted chimney and the whole thing just starts to fall apart. Wow yeah, which gets back to value right. I mean, it’s like we’ve had this conversation because someday we may sell the house. Cancer. I mean, I probably couldn’t even sell it the way it is. I’d have to fix it right. And so that’s where you know, actually, maintaining your chimney, maintaining. Your firebox, et cetera. As much as no one likes to do it, I don’t, obviously. But it can have a really detrimental effect. Imagine you get all the way to the end of inspection. Hey, by the way. Yeah. And then you find out how much a chimney rebuild costs. Correct. And it’s a sticker shock.

[ 00:14:49,430 ]I mean, nobody wants to put time and money into something they can’t even see. Right. Ground. And the chimney is the redhead stepchild up there like it can’t, it can’t get the attention it needs. Right. And so there’s a marketing thing in there somewhere. and so it’s always a shock to think, oh my gosh, I didn’t know it cost this much to fix my chimney. Right, but especially for a recreational burner with a wood fireplace, I know right. And then you come in, and you know, whatever the quote is, if they’re not expecting that amount of money, they’re like, ‘I burn it three times a year.’ You know, I just want to protect, you know. My house and make sure this thing’s not leaking.

[ 00:15:31,510 ]That’s the thing is that the chimney, you know, it’s essentially like this open straw— it’s a pathway into the home, yeah. And if it’s leaking, then you’re framing in the attic, your insulation, your dry wall, and the ceiling, everything’s exposed, getting wet. And then, you know, like you said, if you’re an infrequent user, if you just recreational recreational burning a fire on the weekends—um, that’s the last thing you want to invest your money into. Right. That’s why quality inspections annual inspections—uh, and just some basic maintenance will keep you from having to do that sticker shock on that. Plus, preventative maintenance. So what do you recommend then, you know, for anybody with a wood stove or a wood-burning fireplace, you recommend recommend annual and you know, inspections.

[ 00:16:18,333 ]Do you have an annual plan how does that work with what you guys do? If you’re using, if you’re burning wood, yeah, you absolutely need to have an annual inspection and a sweep if it’s necessary. And our technicians will determine that on site. Usually, if there’s like an eighth of an inch of creosote or more that’s layered, or you know, some visible soot and creosote, let’s sweep it. I’m already here right now, let’s just sweep it. But an annual inspection is extremely important, just flat out, if you have a fireplace, you need to have it inspected every year. The more you have it inspected, the easier that process goes. Sure. It’s just similar to your furnace, similar to everything else. You just, to your point, it’s the redheaded stepchild that gets ignored.

[ 00:16:58,120 ]I like that. That’s a good one. I’m sorry to all the gingers out there. Right. So what are some of the common things that you see when you go out to do an inspection? Um, brickwork, you know, that the chimney is broken, it’s leaking, and it needs help. Um, it could be just some simple sealants that are needed, and we’re not up there running a caulk gun and like caulking all the bad mortar joints and stuff. We try to fix it with good quality products. And, you know, maybe sometimes a patch is all that’s needed. Sometimes we have to do more extensive work, but common issues. Are, yeah, bad mortar joints, bricks that are failing, cracks in the cap or the crown. Sometimes it’s not even a fireplace chimney.

[ 00:17:42,300 ]Sometimes it’s an appliance chimney for a furnace or a water heater. Oh, really? Okay. If you’ve got an old gas or furnace or water heater. It vents into the masonry, uh, that’s extremely deleterious to to a chimney and it’ll destroy a chimney very very quickly. The mortar joints will fall out, you’ll get white powdery efflorescence, it almost looks like it’s growing fur, but that’s it— minerals leeching out of the brick. I’ve got that, oh wow, yeah, yeah. It’s called fluorescence, and so those are common problems. Outside, you know, inside, we see leaks up around the fireplace that kind of stuff. You know, cracks in the walls of your firebox or they’re just filthy, dirty, and they just need cleaner. Right. What’s some of the best wood to burn in a fireplace?

[ 00:18:32,820 ]You know, hardwoods are always the go-to: oak, hickory, ash. You know, burning good quality hardwoods that’s not only dry but it’s seasoned. You want a good moisture content of 15 or less, and then you want— and you can buy those moisture meters on Amazon; they’re super cheap. Test your firewood. But you can have dry wood that was maybe cut down. You know, a few months ago, if you’ve kept it in the garage or if it’s been in a really dry environment, it’ll still burn well. But really, the best stuff is seasoned hardwood that’s been down the tree’s been down for a year or more and it’s been split and stacked properly and it’s been a dry environment. Yeah, but if you go out west, guess what? They’re burning Douglas fir.

[ 00:19:19,640 ]Right, and because that’s what’s available. Yeah, it’s what falls down. They get it. It’s all so you’re going to get less char to use with a softer wood. Right, but the biggest factor— whether you’re burning Douglas fir, or you’re burning, you know, white oak—is the moisture content. So you’ve got to get that moisture content down in order to avoid the creosote. Because, when you have water in wood and you burn it, it’s going to be a lousy fire, first of all. Really hard to keep going, um, but all of that water vapor and the byproducts of combustion mix and it creates uh, tar, smoke, basically, in your system and then you get sticks to the creosote yeah and that’s the worst kind, kind of like pine tar yeah, kind of, kind of yeah.

[ 00:20:05,020 ]Same concept; it can glaze the flue tiles into a mirror black finish yeah and um and that’s what creates chimney fires yeah, that’s fuel in the system where it shouldn’t be because the flue tiles and the chimneys that’s not made for combustion yeah, it’s made to vent, so you put all this fuel up there you get a hot enough fire and then that stuff will expand and ignite and that’s how you get a chimney fire. Yeah. Meh. Yeah. So with wood, do you stack properly, you know, on a proper rack, do you cover it or not cover it? What’s kind of the general thought behind that? You want to let it breathe uh, usually having it covered, having some sort of a roof or just even covering the top there’s a friend of mine in Zionsville, His name’s evading me right now, Martin Rice.

[ 00:20:51,740 ]And he has his own firewood business. And he goes to the nth degree to make sure his firewood is really, really good quality, super dry, only the best quality wood. And he’ll hand deliver to customers with a telehandler and a grate and stuff. Oh, yeah. He’s great. Very good guy, Martin Rice. But, yeah, he just covers the top. He leaves them in these cubes and he’ll cover the top as long as there’s airflow. And it’s not getting wet and it’s been down for a year, it’ll get dry enough. That’s awesome. Yeah, he does a great job. So how did you get into this whole? Business, my yeah, my business partner and I, um, so Back in probably 2008, I was working at a rock climbing gym and I was getting excited about rock climbing.

[ 00:21:43,240 ]And so we’re at heights, you know. and um, didn’t have a problem with that, and and so kind of got recruited to start doing chimney repairs for a local company, local masonry company. okay, big red trucks right, and uh, Enjoyed it? It was fun work. It was interesting. and then years later found myself doing it again and so my business partner and I both were doing repairs for the same company. here he went on to manage a branch and in Kentucky and then made his way down to Atlanta and started working with Chimney Solutions as their division manager. and then I kind of went down there and started working again. so that’s how we both got into Chimney. Chimney repairs, you know. But yes, it’s kind of funny.

[ 00:22:29,900 ]Rock climbing, essentially, is how I got into it. Similar business, so do you do you go over to the the rock climbing gym and recruit? I’ve tried that. Yeah. I’ve put up posters in there and, um, and done that. And actually, one of my first employees came from the rock climbing gym. Nice. Yeah. In Zion’sville, yeah, and climb time. And some of the other ones that I think I think that guy owns one of the climbing gyms now. That’s cool. Good guy that’s nice. So what do you do for fun? What hobbies do you have? I have five children. That’s your hobby. That’s my hobby. Yeah, yeah. What ages? 10, 7, 5, 2, and 6 months. Wow. Yep and so three girls first and then we had two boys.

[ 00:23:15,160 ]Yeah, but they take up as much time as I can give them. And so I really enjoy just being home in the evenings and on the weekends. And we spend time together. My wife is amazing, and it’s great to see the family grow. So that’s the big one. I like to hunt. I like to be outside. I like to do jujitsu. That’s kind of like where I get my wiggles out. Right. How long have you been doing that? I started rolling with these guys in, oh, gosh. Matt pulled you in, I’m assuming. Yeah, Matt Baker did. This gym particularly. I’d been in and out of different gyms six months here and a couple weeks there and this and that. And I never really committed to it.

[ 00:24:02,030 ]But when I met this crew, I was like, ‘Oh my God. Gosh, I got to go all in.’ Yeah, so that’s Bushido Jiu-Jitsu in Zionsville. Okay. And John Parsons, the owner and the instructor, and it’s a really, really cool environment. I’ve probably been with them since John you know started and he took over the gym and it’s probably been three years something like that. Very cool yeah I love it. How often you get to do that? Right now, like once a week if I’m lucky. Okay. Just work’s busy and family’s busy. But I really, if I could be in there three or four days a week. You would. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Feel a lot better when you’re done.

[ 00:24:42,070 ]Sometimes you’re like, ‘Wow, nursing injuries for a couple of weeks, but you just, you know, you just try to be smart about it, like anything else. Yeah, you got to tap out at the right time. As my son found out, yeah. Oh, he did? Yeah, he blew his ACL. Oh, my gosh. He heard it, and then he didn’t tap, and the guy kept going. And maybe he should have known. I don’t know. Yeah. He, uh, that was it. So he’s never been back. He’s okay now. It’s a reinforced way to learn. Yeah. Yeah. That’s unfortunate. Most of the people that get hurt doing it are. Very inexperienced and/ or still at those beginning stages when they’re trying to figure it out, they make a wrong move or they’re too aggressive and they hurt somebody else or they hurt themselves or they get hurt because they don’t understand what’s what’s at play or what’s at stake.

[ 00:25:31,790 ]But somebody that’s more experienced has a much better 10,000-foot view of what’s going on even in the midst of it. And so it’s easier to just kind of back off and be more conscious and make sure that you don’t hurt people. So you got folks to train with tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yeah, that’s a good idea. So what, just a quick aside, what is going on? What is I mean, I’ve seen, looked through the windows, you know, and see people wrestling around. But what, I mean, compared to karate or whatever, is it? Is it more pure techniques? Is it defensive? Is it offensive? Is it more strength? Because you’re not a small, pretty fit guy. So yeah, I’m—I’m like one of the smallest guys in the gym.

[ 00:26:17,990 ]Um, there’s a couple of guys my size, and um, and those are the guys that really are great to train with. But it’s very very defensive minded. Um, any kind of martial arts, hopefully, teaches you and you’ve done martial arts before, you know. Um, quite a bit. And it’s like, hey, I’m going to have the mental acuity and the awareness to step back and be like, ‘Hey, I’m not going to involve myself in this situation.’ Not going to walk down that dark alley. I’m not going to go and confront this drunk guy. Here I’m just going to stay out of it, right unless I’m needed or unless something bad’s happening to me. The easiest way to win is not to fight. Right. Like I’d rather turn around and run. Absolutely.

[ 00:26:56,620 ]Um, but if you find yourself in an altercation and there’s no avoiding it, um, you know, jujitsu is kind of like— you’re either all in or you’re all out. And if I have to, if I have to engage somebody, I’ve never done this. So speaking from an experience, except for, you know, in the gym, if I have to confront somebody, I’m going to want to be all in and I’m going to get as close as I can and I’m going to try to grab your limbs and I’m going to try to take you down and I’m going to control the situation. It’s not about like all the sexy stuff you see on TV, like arm bars and rear naked chokes and stuff.

[ 00:27:33,510 ]It’s like no—I just want to contain you and I want to slow you down and I want to keep you from from doing anything stupid. Right. And we’re just going to sit here and wait together until the police come. Right. And you can’t move. Before you decide to give up, and then the threat’s over, right? Yeah, exactly. Really for me that’s what Jiu-Jitsu is. It’s just learning how to control your opponent, how to have leverage. You know, your the body mechanics. Like it becomes a second nature where you just you learn to, like, a snake— you learn to just wrap and to just apply the right amount of pressure. You stay loose enough, but you also stay tight enough. It’s it’s a blast. It’s so fun. Yeah. Exercise in presence.

[ 00:28:16,580 ]You have to be in the present moment. You can’t be in the past or in the future when you’re on the mat. Right. Yeah. And you can’t think about that stuff anyway. Right. You don’t have time. No, you don’t. Want it to be reflexive, and the stuff that makes the the great ones great is that they can think a couple steps ahead—yeah, or eight steps ahead. Go ahead, make your move—yeah. And so those guys are so fun to train with because they’re always thinking, three or four or five steps down the road—yeah, exactly like chess. Just so. The tattoo— what’s that? I have one. I have one tattoo. My wife looks like a boat. It’s a little shipwreck and it’s got a little tugboat attached to it down here—yeah.

[ 00:28:55,930 ]And um, my wife—uh, painted this. Oh, very cool. Yep. And so I got that. You know—um, very early in our marriage. I think, like, our first year. We got married. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the only one. Can you give us a perspective, you know, how much value to a well-maintained, properly you know set up a fireplace or wood-burning stove can bring to a homeowner? Yeah. Well, there’s a couple of different things there. You’ve got value that’s tangible and you have intrinsic value. It’s not something you can put your hands around. The stuff you can’t put your hands around is the time you get to spend around the fireplace. The memories that you make there, the smell of a wood-burning stove, or just the ease and convenience of being able to turn on a gas fireplace with the touch of a button.

[ 00:29:47,900 ]Those things are intrinsic. It’s not tangible value. The value that, I’ll put it this way, a quality gas fireplace, direct vent fireplace with installation is going to be anywhere from depending on the home, $10 ,000 to $20 ,000. That’s from us. General range. We’re going to walk in. We’re going to take out what you have and or put in something new that’s never been there. Just call it 15 grand for something like that. Um, But there’s a lot that goes with it as well. So in terms of how does that affect the value of your home? um it depends on the home depends on the fireplace i i don’t know that i could put a an exact number on it but it’s significant you know because a lot of people are buying fireplaces that need work.

[ 00:30:39,040 ]They need, they need help. So it’s a, it’s, it’s almost a cost negative for them. A home that has an existing fireplace. And what type of inspection does the home inspector do compared to an inspection that you might do? And is there a situation where the home inspector says, ‘There’s a lot more here. I probably need to call a specialist and then they call you.’ Tell us about how that process works. Yeah, the state of Indiana will refer the fire. Place in the chimney work to a certified specialist and so even your inspectors, if you look at the home inspection, if you have a fireplace, it’ll say ‘recommend a qualified contractor’ be called to inspect the fireplace.

[ 00:31:25,320 ]So unless your home inspector is certified by the Chimney Safety Institute of America or the National Fireplace Institute, they’re going to want you to call us or another certified chimney. And so that’s usually what it looks like. You call us, we come out, we inspect, we do our own camera inspection. We do our own rooftop inspection, you know, crawl space to. inside and out, we look at every piece of the system and that’s called a level two inspection. It’s gonna run generally three hundred to four hundred dollars. And. It’s worth it. It’s worth every penny. And then, once you have that documented, then they can provide that to the mortgage company that it’s been done, it’s been inspected, and then also provide it to their insurance carrier. Yep. Yep.

[ 00:32:13,460 ]And if we spot something— i mean, I hate to be the bearer of bad news— we’ve ruined deals before, right? Because of the condition of the fireplace, and we present the facts and say, ‘This is what you’ve got to work with.’ But it’s informative. And at that point, they’re making a better informed decision whether they decide to move forward with a chimney that needs work or not. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not our intention. want people to buy homes and and to enjoy them but we don’t want i don’t want you to walk into a nightmare yeah um and you know it needs thirty thousand dollars exactly exactly so we sleep good at night knowing that we’re not putting people at risk and nice you know doing doing right so gotcha perfect Fair enough. Thanks again. Thanks for coming. For sure. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. LET’S-