Photographs, A Scope, And Nothing We Cannot Prove.
A chimney claim is decided by a person at a desk who will never see your roof. Everything they know comes from the pictures and the wording in front of them. We build that package properly and we perform the repair. We do not argue your claim, and we do not tell you what your policy covers.
Every finding photographed and located, every line of the scope tied to a specific image, and anything unreachable written down as unreachable.
A contractor with a camera, not your advocate.
Plenty of companies blur this line during a claim because it sells work. Knowing exactly where a contractor stops is worth more to you than a promise nobody can keep, so here it is in two columns.
What we do
- Inspect the chimney and hearth after a loss and photograph the damage where it is, at a scale someone can judge from a desk
- Run a camera through the flue and keep the stills, including the ones that show nothing wrong
- Describe each damaged component in the terms the trade and the codes actually use
- Produce a repair scope broken into separate priced lines, one per component
- Meet the adjuster on site when the visit is scheduled with enough notice to get a truck there
- Perform the approved repair and photograph the finished work the same way we photographed the damage
What we will not do
- Argue your claim for you — we are a contractor, not a public adjuster or an attorney
- Tell you whether something is covered; your policy and your carrier decide that, not us
- Predict an approval, a payment amount, or how a supplement will land
- Waive, absorb, or rebate any part of a deductible, which Texas law does not permit a contractor to do
- Write a cause of loss the photographs do not support, at any price
- Start approved work before you have told us in writing to start it
Five kinds of loss, one honest question each.
Each of these has a specific thing that has to be established on site, and getting it wrong on the first visit is expensive to correct once a file is open.
Wind and hail
Displaced or torn flashing, a chase cover dented through its coating, a cap bent or carried off, mortar joints opened on the windward face. Hail damage to a chimney is frequently missed on a roof inspection because nobody goes up to the crown and looks straight down at it.
Lightning
A strike to a masonry chimney can crack the structure top to bottom, blow the crown apart, or damage the liner without leaving much to see from the ground. The flue camera matters more here than anywhere else, because the significant damage is often entirely internal.
Chimney fire
Cracked or shifted flue tiles, a warped or delaminated metal liner, heat damage to framing at the penetration. A chimney fire can burn out inside a few minutes and still leave the system unfit to light again, which is why the interior scope is not optional after one.
Impact
A limb, a whole tree, or a vehicle. The visible break is the easy part. What has to be documented is whether the structure moved, whether the liner is still continuous, and whether the framing around it took load it was not built for.
Water, after the fact
Staining on a ceiling below a chimney, efflorescence on interior brick, a firebox that is wet after a storm. Here the honest work is establishing whether the water path opened during a specific event or has been open for years, because those are not the same finding and we will not write the convenient one.
Where we are, and where we are not.
You open the claim with your carrier
That first call is yours to make, not ours, and it should not wait on us. You will get a claim number and a date of loss, and both of those go on everything we produce afterward so the file stays together.
We inspect and document
Exterior, roof line, crown, cap and flashing, then the firebox and a camera pass through the flue. Photographs are dated and located, and we note what could not be reached and why, because an unexplained gap in a photo set invites a question later.
We write the scope
One line per component, each tied to a specific photographed condition, with the repair method and the price for that line. An adjuster reviewing it should be able to match every dollar to a picture without calling anyone.
Your adjuster reviews it
This part is between you and your carrier. If the adjuster schedules a site visit with enough notice, we will be there to walk the findings and answer technical questions. If they come back asking for more detail on a line, we will produce it. What happens to the claim after that is genuinely not in our hands.
Approved work gets done and re-documented
We do not start until you tell us to start. When the work is finished it is photographed from the same positions as the damage set, so the file closes with a before and after that anyone can line up side by side.
Priced the same whether there is a claim or not.
A price that quietly inflates because an insurer is paying is fraud with better manners, and it is also the fastest way to have a scope torn apart by a reviewer. Ours is the same figure it would be if you were writing the check yourself.
Roof line, crown, cap, flashing, firebox and a camera pass through the flue, with the dated image set that the rest of the file is built on.
One priced line per damaged component, each tied to a photograph, so a reviewer can approve or question individual items instead of the whole number.
Prices shown are starting estimates and may change with the condition, access, and scope we find on site. Only a written quote from an on-site visit is a price we commit to.
A license holder performs and signs any gas, electrical or structural portion of the repair, to whatever your jurisdiction requires. Carrier-specific notes and the longer write-up live on our insurance section and claims process pages.
Book your inspection
Photograph it now. Decide about the claim after.
If a storm just went through, the useful thing is a dated record of the condition before anything is cleaned up, tarped, or trimmed back. Whether that turns into a claim is a separate decision you can make afterward with the pictures in hand. Put the date of loss and the claim number in the notes if you already have them.
Chimney insurance claims — FAQ
Will you fight my insurance company for me?
No. A contractor who tells you they will negotiate your claim is either overstating what they do or doing something they should not be. Our job is to produce documentation and a scope so clear that there is very little left to argue about, and to answer technical questions accurately if the adjuster has them. If your claim genuinely needs an advocate, that is a public adjuster or an attorney, and those are licensed roles we do not hold.
Will my policy pay for this?
That is not ours to answer, and you should be wary of anyone in our trade who says it is. Whether something gets paid turns on your policy wording, the deductible sitting on it, the peril, and what your carrier determines — none of which are ours to decide. What we can give you is what we found, what caused it as far as the physical evidence goes, and what it costs to put right. Your adjuster takes it from there.
The damage looks like it has been building for years. What will you write?
What we see. If the mortar has been failing gradually and a storm simply made it visible, the report will say the deterioration is long-standing, and that is often not the answer a homeowner wants during a claim. We would rather lose that job than put our name on a cause of loss the photographs contradict, because that document can end up in front of people with subpoena power.
Another contractor offered to cover my deductible. Can you match that?
No, and neither can they, legally. Texas law does not permit a contractor to pay, waive, absorb, or rebate any part of your deductible on a property insurance claim, and a company willing to break that rule in writing is telling you something about how they will handle the rest of your job. Our price is our price and your deductible is yours.
My adjuster wants more detail on one line of the scope.
Send it over. Usually it means the line describes a repair method without making clear why the cheaper method will not work, and the fix is a photograph plus two sentences about the condition behind it. We would rather answer that in a day than have the line reduced because nobody explained it.
Do you work with my specific insurer?
We work for you, not for a carrier, and we do not hold preferred-vendor arrangements that would put us on the other side of that. Practically, adjusters from most carriers read the same kind of documentation, which is why the scope is built the way it is. There are carrier-specific notes on our insurance section if you want to see how a particular claim tends to run.
Can you inspect before I file, so I know whether it is worth a claim?
Yes, and that is often the sensible order. A documented inspection tells you what is actually damaged and roughly what correcting it costs, and sometimes the answer is that the repair is smaller than the deductible and there is no claim worth opening. That is a perfectly good outcome and we will say so.
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