Service area
El Segundo chimney sweep for a town the refinery built
AAA Chimney Sweep is a family owned chimney company that sweeps and repairs chimneys in El Segundo, on every residential street west of Pacific Coast Highway. We have been in business since 1977. Sweeps start at $99. Inspections start at $69.
What is the fireplace doing?
8am to 8pm
A refinery first, then a town
More than half the homes in El Segundo went up between 1940 and 1969, so a typical chimney here is 55 to 85 years old.
The town came after the oil. Standard Oil bought 840 acres of beach-side farmland here in 1911 for its second West Coast refinery, and the name is Spanish for "the second." The city incorporated in 1917. Smoky Hollow still carries the nickname it got from refinery smoke settling over it. It is workshops and offices now, so the fireplaces are in the homes to the west.
Census estimates count 7,889 homes in El Segundo. Only about 630 predate 1940. Roughly 4,270 date from the three decades after that. That is the age when crowns, liners and dampers start to go.
One more thing about the housing. Around 2,840 homes here are in buildings of two to nine units. A duplex or a small apartment building can run two flues up one chimney.
On the roof
Three things an El Segundo chimney tells us
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Crowns poured in the 1940s, 50s and 60s
A mortar crown takes rain on its flat top every winter. Give it six or seven decades and hairline cracks open up. Water follows them into the brick below. We look at the crown on every sweep.
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Two flues sharing one stack
In a duplex or a fourplex, one chimney can carry a flue for each unit. If the tile between them cracks, smoke from one fireplace can find its way into the other. The camera shows which flue is which, and where the break is.
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Salt from the city's western edge
The Pacific is El Segundo's whole western boundary. Galvanized caps rust in that air. So do damper plates. We fit stainless.
What we do here
The work El Segundo homes need most
Chimney inspection
A camera run through every flue in a shared El Segundo stack, one unit at a time.
Chimney repair
New crowns and repointed joints for stacks built between 1940 and 1969.
Chimney cap installation
Stainless caps sized to each flue, for the blocks closest to the beach.
Chimney sweeping
Creosote out, then a close look at the firebox and damper on a postwar El Segundo fireplace.
Want to hear from people who have booked us? Our Yelp profile has their reviews.
Questions
What El Segundo owners ask before booking
- My house was built before 1940. What should I expect?
- Expect us to want the camera. A flue that old may still carry its first clay tile, and cracks in tile do not show from the firebox. We run the camera the full length and show you the footage before we talk about any work.
- We live in a fourplex. Who books the chimney work?
- Whoever owns the building, or the association if the units are condos. If two units share one chimney, we would rather look at both flues on the same visit.
- We are selling a 1950s house. Will the buyer want a chimney report?
- Many buyers do. A Level II inspection covers it: camera footage of the whole flue plus photos and a written report you can hand to the agent.
- Our newer home has a gas fireplace that will not light. Do you work on those?
- Yes. We work on gas inserts, log sets and factory built units as well as masonry fireplaces. Tell us the make if you know it.
Nearby
Across the city line
El Segundo meets Manhattan Beach at its south edge, and Westchester sits on the far side of LAX.
Book a visit
Tell us the year your El Segundo house was built
Give us the street and the build year, even a rough one. Before 1940 means we bring the camera ready to run. Postwar means we start with the crown.
818-348-1993Open every day, 8am to 8pm. Homes west of Pacific Coast Highway.
Request a visit
We answer the same day during business hours.