Our Process
How fireplace repairs are done in Midway
Fixing a fireplace that smokes into the room
According to EPA wood-burning guidance, a fireplace or stove used properly produces little smoke, so smoke you see or smell on a regular basis signals a problem. Inside the fireplace, the causes we check first are a damper that is not fully open, a blocked or narrowed passage, damp fuel and a room starved of air by exhaust fans.
We test the damper, look through the throat and smoke chamber and ask how the smoke behaves: only at lighting, only with the kitchen fan on or all the time. The answer tells our pros whether the fix is a repair inside the fireplace or work on the chimney above it, and your Midway estimate says which.
Repairing sagging brick over the fireplace opening
Over the fireplace opening, the brick is carried by a lintel, most often a steel angle. The code requires that lintel to be noncombustible and to bear at least 4 inches onto the masonry at each end, with the throat or damper at least 8 inches above it (R1001.7). Heat and rust can bend or thin a steel lintel with time.
Cracks stepping up from the corners of the opening, a gap under the first row of brick or a visible dip across the top are the signs we check. Where the lintel has failed, our pros support the masonry, replace the lintel and reset the brick above it, then show you the finished opening before the site is cleaned up.
Glass door repair on factory-built fireplaces
Adding glass doors changes the airflow through a fireplace and the temperatures its parts reach. For factory-built fireplaces, the code allows a gasketed door only when the fireplace system has been tested, listed and labeled for it under UL 127 (R1004.5). A door kit that fits the opening is not automatically approved for the unit behind it.
We repair hinges, handles and loose frames on doors made for your model and replace cracked door glass with the listed part. If the doors on your Midway fireplace were added later and are not listed for it, we tell you what the manual allows before any repair is quoted.
Deciding between fireplace repair and replacement
A repair makes sense when it restores a part that failed and leaves the rest of the fireplace sound. Widespread damage, a factory-built unit whose parts are no longer made or a firebox that has lost its structure can change that answer.
Our specialists give you the straight version: what the repair would fix, what it would leave behind and what a replacement involves. If replacement is the better path for your Midway home, it is quoted as a separate project with its own free estimate, and you decide with both options in writing.
