Documenting chimney damage before anything gets cleaned up

Nothing here matters more than not standing under a damaged chimney. If brick has come down, if the stack is out of plumb, or if you can see daylight where there should be none, keep people clear of that side of the house until the structure has been looked at.

Then photograph from the ground. The Brick Industry Association's guidance for examining upper-level masonry is to use binoculars, and adjacent roof areas or balconies, to get a closer look — not to climb a wet Puget Sound roof for a better frame.

Each step is easier when the one before it is finished. Homeowners usually weaken their own file by doing the last step before the second one.

1. 1

   Make it safe

   Stop using the appliance, keep people clear of anything that could fall, and let the fire department handle any active fire.

2. 2

   Document the scene as it is

   Photograph and write down what you can see, from a safe position, before anything is swept, moved, covered or thrown out.

3. 3

   Report the loss to your insurer

   Ask what their process is: which forms, what proof they want, and whether they want their own inspection first. Your policy and your insurer set those requirements — not a contractor, and not this page.

4. 4

   Have the chimney inspected

   The inspection turns a folder of photographs into a professional opinion about what failed and how far it runs.

5. 5

   Then repair

   Repair comes after the findings are written down. On our own jobs a written scope and price comes first, and nothing starts until you approve it.

Work from wide to tight: the whole house with the chimney in it, then the whole chimney, then the roofline where it passes through, and only then each thing that looks wrong. A close-up with no wide shot in front of it is hard for a stranger to place.

• The whole chimney, from two sides. Enough roof and house in frame that anyone can tell which chimney, on which elevation.
• The firebox, damper and smoke chamber. The smoke chamber is the tapered space above the firebox that funnels smoke into the flue; the damper is the plate that closes the throat. Shoot the damper straight on, before anyone works the handle.
• The crown, the cap and the flashing. The crown is the sloped slab on top, the cap covers the flue opening, and the flashing seals the roof joint. Zoom from the ground if that is the only safe angle.
• Cracked masonry, open mortar joints, damaged roofing. Plus any staining or scorching inside the house.
• Everything that has come off. Fallen brick, pieces of flue tile, creosote flakes on the roof or ground, a distorted rain cap — photographed where they landed.
• Dates and a written note. Keep the original files with their timestamps, and write down the date, the time and what happened.

Pull out any photographs from an earlier inspection too. The Brick Industry Association recommends inspecting masonry periodically, preferably each season, documented with photographs and notes — a dated picture of a sound crown last spring is the cleanest way to show that this week's crack is new.

Most of the harm done to a claim file happens in the first day, with a broom and a trash bag, by someone trying to help.

• Do not have the flue swept first. Sweeping is necessary — a flue too dirty to inspect has to be cleaned before its condition can be judged — but it comes after the photographs.
• Do not throw the damaged parts away. Cracked tile sections, a warped damper, a distorted rain cap, fallen brick. A component you can hand to an inspector beats a description of one.
• Do not patch, parge or repoint anything. Repointing is the removal and replacement of deteriorated mortar in the joints. Done before the damage is recorded, it turns a documented failure into an undocumented one.
• Do not let debris be hauled off unphotographed. Including whatever a roofer or the fire department clears while on site.
• Do not leave it open in the rain either. Reasonable temporary protection against further water entry is normally expected. Photograph first, keep the covering reversible, and ask your insurer before anything becomes permanent.

NFPA 211 sets Level 2 as the inspection type after a building or chimney fire, a weather or seismic event, or another incident likely to have caused damage to the chimney. Read the wording: likely to have caused damage, not visibly damaged. That covers a fire in the flue, a windstorm, an earthquake, and a tree or vehicle striking the structure.

A Level 2 covers all accessible portions of the chimney inside and out, including accessible attics, crawl spaces and basements, and it requires the internal surfaces of the flue liners to be examined with image-scanning equipment. The camera run down the flue is part of the standard, not an extra line on a quote.

What makes a report useful to an adjuster is that a stranger can follow it without you in the room. CSIA's Level 2 procedure closes by having the technician discuss the findings, hand over a copy, obtain the client's signature and keep it on file — so ask for your copy and read it before you sign.

• The date, and the level actually performed. Plus the reason, where a requested level could not be completed.
• Anywhere that could not be entered, and why. CSIA expects a Level 2 to include the roof and the accessible attic, basement and crawl space, and any exception written down rather than passed over.
• The interior scan findings, in words. Footage on its own is not a finding. The report should say what the scan showed, flue by flue.
• The specific components found damaged. Named and located, with photographs tied to each stated condition — not "fire damage throughout".
• What is urgent, what can wait, and what does not need doing. So a reader who has never seen the chimney can tell a safety item from a cosmetic one.

None of this is a statement about your coverage. CSIA's claim is narrow, and it is the only one worth repeating: documenting damaged sections and creosote with photographs helps an insurance adjuster process a repair claim. It does not say the claim will be approved, and neither do we.

Policies differ on cause of loss, on maintenance exclusions, and on what they will pay to restore. Your insurer decides all of it. What a good record does is smaller: it removes any argument about what the chimney looked like before anyone worked on it.