Santa may be coming down the chimney later this month, but you can’t rely on Old Saint Nick for an honest chimney inspection on his way down.
No, chimney inspections aren’t required for new home buyers, but I always recommend one just in case. Home inspectors aren’t required to inspect chimneys, so you’ll either want to find someone who does, or go ahead and book a specialist in chimney inspections.
Even if you’re thinking you might not use your fireplace, it couldn’t hurt to get an inspection done to determine its condition.
My wife and I have a fireplace in our living room. When we first moved in we were told the fireplace is in “as-is condition,” which of course is a way of saying either “this thing doesn’t work” or “we have absolutely no idea if this thing does or doesn’t work.”
To get a better idea of the state of our fireplace, we hired a chimney inspector who scoped it out and told us that it would require some repairs in order to get it up and running. Knowing that our money would be better spent on a few renovations we had in mind, we opted to pass on repairs and instead use it as a decorative area in our room.
If you know you’ll never use the fireplace, then you probably shouldn’t worry about an inspection. However, if you think you might want to use it, perhaps even once, I highly recommend making sure you know you’ll stay safe in doing so. At the very least, you or your real estate agent down the line may be able to answer questions with ease for the next potential buyer to come through your home.