Chimney Damper Repair in Cherry Hill, NJ

Rust at the pivot, heat warping or jammed debris keeps most dampers from moving. Rust is the common one in South Jersey, where a damp flue and long idle stretches give it time. Warping comes from fires built too close to the plate, or from a chimney fire. Debris is the third possibility: mortar crumbs, a fallen piece of tile or an old nest can wedge in the throat so the plate cannot travel. A handle that moves with nothing happening above it usually means a broken linkage.

Force is the wrong first step. A seized cast iron plate can crack or drop onto the smoke shelf, and a damper yanked open over a season's worth of soot sends that soot into the room. Never light a fire on the guess that the flue is open. Hold a flashlight up past the throat, or look for daylight from below, and if the plate cannot be confirmed open, leave the fireplace unlit until someone has looked. A damper rusted partly open is less dangerous than one stuck closed, but it leaks air through every heating and cooling season.

A vented gas log set needs a fixed opening so exhaust can never be trapped in the room, and the set's manual spells out how that is done. Installation manuals generally call for the damper to be removed or locked open, or held at a set minimum gap with a clamp, in line with the National Fuel Gas Code and local rules. So a gas fireplace with a damper that swings fully closed deserves a second look, even if it has been that way for years.

Keeping the damper fixed has a cost, since the opening also lets conditioned air out, and the owner's manual for the logs is the first thing to read before changing anything. If the logs came with the house and no manual, the model label under the burner usually leads to one. The chimney flue above gas logs still gets looked at each year, since exhaust from a gas flame can condense in a cold flue even without creosote.

Usually yes, when the throat damper has failed or never sealed well, and what you get is a spring-loaded lid at the top of the flue, opened and closed from the firebox by a cable. The lid closes against a gasket, so it stops air leaks better than a metal plate resting on a frame. Sitting at the top, it also keeps rain, animals and cold air out of the whole flue when closed, and the masonry below stays closer to room temperature. Many units double as a rain cap for the same reason.

A few cautions apply. The flue has to be open before any fire, so the cable handle lives inside the firebox where it cannot be overlooked. Tile that is cracked or uneven at the top may not give the frame a good seat, and it has to be sound enough to carry it. On a flue that also serves a furnace or a water heater, a top-sealing damper is never an option, because that flue has to stay open at all times. Check first in the historic district: from the street it reads like a cap, and in Haddonfield a change in the look of the stack can call for a Certificate of Appropriateness.

A rusted damper has to be replaced when the plate itself has failed, and it can stay when the plate and frame are sound and only the moving parts are gone. Cleaning the throat, freeing the pivot and replacing a broken handle, poker or linkage bring many dampers back. When the plate has rusted through, warped so it no longer meets its frame, or lost the seat it closes against, the repair stops making sense, and a new damper is the better use of the visit.

Replacing a throat damper is not always simple, because the old frame was often built into the masonry when the fireplace went up. On many older fireplaces the frame stays and the working parts change, or a top-sealing damper is fitted at the other end of the flue. New Jersey's residential code requires a masonry fireplace to have a ferrous metal damper at least 8 inches above the top of the opening, installed in the fireplace or in the chimney venting it, and operable from the room. Removing a broken damper and leaving nothing behind is not an option on a working fireplace. The code's wording allows a damper at the top of the chimney, which is why a top-sealing damper is a fair replacement.

A factory-built fireplace has a damper built into the unit, and repairs use parts meant for that model. Townhouses and colonials from the years when Evesham, Voorhees and Mount Laurel grew fastest often have these units. The linkage or the plate can fail, but a masonry-style replacement does not apply. New Jersey's code keeps these fireplaces installed to their listing, so a part from another maker is not a fair substitute, and the data plate on the unit is the starting point for finding the right one.

On any fireplace, the repair starts with a look at the throat, the smoke shelf and the cap, because the same water that seized the damper may still be getting in. Chimney cleaning clears the soot so the parts can be seen, and chimney repair follows from what turns up. AMG Duct Cleaning Cherry Hill works across Camden County and Burlington County. It is veteran owned, licensed and insured, and each damper job begins with a free estimate.