If you hear noises coming from your chimney, it could mean that you have an unwanted visitor. Lots of different animals enter into chimneys looking for a place to hide, or set up residence. Unfortunately, there are very few animals that can make it back out once they are in.
Raccoons are one animal that can and will come and go from your chimney. Raccoons love the warmth that comes from the natural heating of our homes. The area above the damper makes for a great nesting place for raccoons. It is a dark area that they can sleep and stay warm during the day. The problems really start once a raccoon has given birth to her litter. The mom raccoon will only leave to get food for her kits. It takes up to 4 weeks for the babies to have the ability to leave the chimney.
To prevent having raccoons come and go from your chimney, we recommend installing a stainless steel screen and rain cover. If a raccoon feels safe in your chimney, it will call it home until something is done to remove it. It is much easier for us to remove a raccoon that is alive. In most cases we are able to chase them up the flue with our chimney sweeping rods.
Other animals, like this wood duck, and squirrels will often times go into chimneys, unfortunately they are unable to get out. If we are called when homeowners first hear the noises coming from the chimney we are often times able to remove the animal alive and healthy. We find an area on the chimney that allows for us to break into the chimney in a location near the animal. We then make a hole that looks like the chevy symbol, removing 4 brick 1 high, 2 in the middle and 1 low. This gives us the space necessary to either allow for the animal to leave on it’s own accord or grab and remove the animal.
The chimney swift is a federally protected bird that resides in chimneys. We are not allowed to remove these birds from your chimney. Once a chimney swift has set up residence, we need to leave them until they have had their babies and left the nest. Once they are gone we are able to come in and sweep your chimney and install a stainless steel screen and raincover. If we do not install the stainless steel screen and raincover the chimney swifts will return to that same nest every year.