Get in touch Village of Elmwood Park!
Winter is coming to Elmwood Park! This means chimney and fireplace cleaning is inevitable. And when that day comes, be sure to give Chimney Monkey a call! We’ll sweep your chimney, fireplace, and even take out the trash on our way out!
Our home fireplace experts know just how to make your fireplace the cleanest and coziest it’s ever been! Call 847 994 4388 or email today!
If you are a Elmwood Park resident look no further than Chimney Monkey to have your fireplace cleaning done. You won’t be disappointed!
Contact your local chimney sweep
You can call our office from Monday to Friday from 8am – 9pm at 847 994 4388
Fireplace and Chimney Cleaning in Elmwood Park
Elmwood Park is an inner-ring village with dense, closely spaced housing built largely between the 1920s and the 1950s. The classic Chicago brick bungalow is everywhere here, along with two-flats and small brick Georgians. These are compact lots with narrow side yards, which has a practical effect on chimney work: access is tighter, ladders and staging have less room, and the chimneys themselves are frequently shared party-wall structures or sit close to a neighbouring roof.
What We Find in Elmwood Park Chimneys
Bungalow-era chimneys have a distinctive profile of problems. They are typically tall relative to the roof, built of soft common brick, and they very often serve a furnace and a water heater rather than a fireplace, or both a fireplace and the utilities in separate flues. Ninety-odd years of Chicago freeze-thaw has usually taken the mortar joints in the top few feet, and a mortar-wash crown from that era has long since cracked.
The soft brick matters. Pre-war common brick laid in lime mortar has to be repointed with a comparably soft mix; repointing it with a hard modern Portland mortar transfers movement stress into the brick and spalls the faces. We see a lot of that in Elmwood Park from previous repairs, and undoing it means cutting out the hard mortar, replacing spalled units, and repointing properly with a matched soft mortar.
What a Sweep Includes, and What It Costs in Elmwood Park
Our prices are flat and published, which is unusual in this trade and deliberate on our part. A full chimney sweep is $300 to $350 (rates as of September 2026) and the Level 1 inspection is included in that price. It covers containment and drop cloths, mechanical cleaning of the flue, cleaning the smoke chamber and smoke shelf, HEPA vacuuming of the firebox, a camera look up the flue on every single sweep, and a photographed report of what we found. We run the camera whether or not you ask for it, because spotting a cracked tile or an open joint is the whole reason to be up there.
If you need the inspection without the sweep, a Level 1 is $200 to $300, a utility flue inspection for a furnace or water heater is $200 to $300, and a Level 2 with a camera survey of the flue interior is around $300, with a discount for each additional flue. We already run a camera during a routine sweep as part of Level 1, so what a Level 2 really buys you is the formal documented survey and the written report insurers and buyers ask for — which is what you need when a Elmwood Park home changes hands. Common repairs are published too: a stainless cap is about $350, crown resurfacing about $400, crown replacement $2,000 to $3,000. Tuckpointing we quote by the section after looking at the chimney, since joint depth, mortar matching and roof access move the price far more than brick count does. The full list is on our chimney repair cost page.
Signs Your Chimney Needs Attention
Smoke rolling back into the room, a fireplace that draws worse than it used to, a persistent smoky or sour smell in warm weather, debris or sandy mortar collecting in the firebox, white staining on the exterior brick, rust on the damper or the appliance vent connector, and scratching or chirping sounds in the flue. Any one of those is worth a look. A carbon monoxide alarm sounding is a leave-the-house-and-call-the-fire-department event, not a scheduling one.
Related work we handle: sweeping, inspections, relining, crown repair, caps and chase covers, tuckpointing, masonry repair, leak repair, and fireplace installation.
Booking in Elmwood Park
Call 847-994-4388 or request an appointment. Our shop is at 741 Hastings Dr, Buffalo Grove, IL 60089. Late summer and early fall book out fastest, because everyone remembers the fireplace at the same time; if you want a sweep before the first cold snap, call before October. Real estate transactions get scheduling priority, since Level 2 inspections tend to arrive with a deadline attached.