One Document. Both Sides Can Read It.
A camera goes down the flue, the crown and cap and flashing get examined, and what comes back is a written report with photographs, the standard behind each finding, and repair figures. Built to be handed to a client, forwarded to the other side, and taken to a second contractor without embarrassment.
Give us your option deadline at booking. If the calendar cannot hold it, we will say so on the call.
Start with the part most vendor pages leave out. We do not have a roster of agents who feed us listings, and we are not about to fake one. This is a newer lane for us. The chimney work behind it is not new, and neither is the report format, which we already produce for homeowners and for managed property files. What is new is packaging it around a closing date and writing it for someone who has never stood on a roof in their life.
So the pitch is narrow. Run one listing through it. If the document is good, you will know within about four minutes of opening it, and if it is not, you have spent one inspection finding out.
Same inspection, three very different jobs.
The same inspection does very different work depending on when it lands. Ordering it early is a pricing decision. Ordering it during the option period is a leverage decision. Ordering it after repairs is a closing decision.
Before the sign goes up
Pre-listing inspection
Listing side
Run the flue before the photos, not after an offer. If the liner is sound, you have a document that closes the subject down the moment a buyer's inspector waves a flashlight at it. If it is not sound, the seller finds out while they still have choices: fix it, price it in, or disclose it. All three of those are better than discovering it on day four of an option period with a buyer already leaning toward a credit.
What your client walks away with
A written condition report the seller owns and can attach to the disclosure.
Inside the option period
Second look after the general inspection
Buyer side
A whole-house inspection covers the whole house, which means the chimney gets a visual pass from the firebox and a look at the stack from the ground. That is what the scope allows, and it is why chimney items so often come back written as recommend evaluation by a chimney professional. This page is that second look: a camera run top to bottom inside the flue, the accessible runs checked, and the crown, cap, flashing and firebox examined.
What your client walks away with
Findings with photographs and a repair scope with numbers, so the client is deciding on evidence.
After the repairs
Re-inspection and close-out
Either side
A repair receipt is not proof of a repair. When work has been done in response to a finding, we go back, shoot the same angles a second time, set the new frames beside the first set, and write whether the finding is closed or still open. It is a short visit and it removes the last thing that stalls a file at the end, which is one party not believing the other.
What your client walks away with
A before-and-after pair and a plain statement of closed or not closed.
Written so you never have to translate it on the phone.
The test we hold it to is simple. You should be able to forward it to a client cold, and the client should not need you on the phone afterward translating a single line of it.
Camera stills from inside the flue
Not a description of the liner. Images of it, joint by joint, from the smoke chamber to the top. This is the part nobody else on the transaction has, because nobody else brought a camera.
Findings a buyer can actually follow
Written for a buyer and a seller, not for another sweep. Every finding says what was observed, where, and why it matters, without the trade shorthand that makes a report feel like it is hiding something.
The code reference behind each line
NFPA 211 where the flue and clearances are concerned, the IRC for terminations and hearth dimensions. A finding that cites the standard survives a second opinion. A finding that cites nothing is an opinion.
A repair scope with numbers
Each recommended repair is a line item with a figure attached, so the number in the conversation is a quote and not a guess made across a kitchen island.
What is fine, stated as clearly as what is not
A report that only lists problems reads as a sales document. Components in serviceable condition are listed as such, because on most transactions that is the majority of the page and it is the part that calms everyone down.
One file, sent to whoever you name
Delivered as a single document you can forward without editing. Send it to the client, the other side, or the lender, and nothing in it needs a translator or a redaction.
What we control, and what we do not.
A vendor who promises a date they cannot hold is worse than one who tells you no on the phone. Here is the split, so you can plan around the real constraint instead of a marketing promise.
Give us the deadline at booking. It changes how we sequence the day, and it decides whether we take the job at all.
Ours: the sequence
Booking, the visit itself, and the written report are inside our control, and a dated deadline moves a job up the schedule rather than sitting in the queue behind routine work.
Ours: the format
You get the same document every time. That matters on a deadline, because nobody is waiting on us to figure out how to present a finding.
Not ours: weather
Nobody goes up on a wet or iced roof just to make a date. If that call gets made you hear it the same morning, not at five in the afternoon, so the day is still yours to work with.
Not ours: access
A vacant property with no confirmed key, a gate code that does not work, or a tenant who was never told costs a day. Confirm access when you book and this stops being a risk.
Three things this report is not.
- Not a home inspection. It covers the chimney and venting system and nothing else in the house. Where your client needs whole-house coverage, they need a licensed inspector, and this sits beside that report rather than substituting for any part of it.
- Not an opinion on value. We will tell you what a repair costs. We will not tell you what the house is worth with or without it, and we will not put a number in the report that is really a negotiating position wearing a technical costume.
- Not a side. The same document goes out whether a buyer or a seller paid for it, and it reads identically either way. That is the only reason it is worth anything to either of them.
One property, one number, stated before we come out.
Transaction work is a single address and a known scope, so it is quoted on the phone rather than after a walkthrough. What moves the figure is the property, not the deadline. We do not price a rush against a closing date.
Transaction report, from
$300
The full camera inspection packaged for a sale, written up for a buyer, a seller, or a lender to read. Full scope.
Standalone camera inspection, from
$250
The same internal scan without the transaction packaging, for a client who wants the condition and not the paperwork.
Repairs and re-inspection
Quoted on site
Every repair is a line item tied to a photographed finding, and your client approves or declines each one.
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.
Where a license is required — gas, electrical, structural — a licensed pro performs the work or signs for it, under the code applying where the property sits. Standards and compliance.
Where this connects
Give us the property and the clock you are up against.
Put the option or closing date in the notes along with how we get in, whether the property is occupied, and who the report goes to. If the date is tight we will tell you straight away whether it is realistic. Booking one listing as a test is the sane way to start, and it is what we would do in your position.
Book your inspection
Real estate — FAQ
Are you a licensed home inspector?
No, and we do not market this as one. We are a chimney company, and what we produce covers the chimney and venting system only: the firebox, the smoke chamber, the flue and liner, the crown, the cap, the flashing, and the appliance where one is fitted. Nothing about the roof, the foundation, the electrical, or anything else in the house appears in it. If your client needs a whole-house inspection, they need a licensed inspector, and this sits alongside that report rather than replacing any part of it.
Our home inspector covered the chimney already. What does this add?
A different scope, and the home inspection report usually admits as much in its own wording. Whole-house coverage means what is readily accessible in the firebox plus a look at the stack from outside, in the minutes the scope allows across an entire property. None of that reaches the inside of the flue, which is precisely where liner cracks, gaps between clay tiles, and heat damage sit. When a report flags the chimney for further evaluation, this is what it is pointing at. If nothing was flagged and the house is fairly new, plenty of clients reasonably skip it.
Can you work inside our option period?
That is what the transaction report is built for, and the honest answer has two halves. Scheduling and the written report sit inside our control, and a dated closing gets treated as the constraint it is. Weather and access do not sit inside our control. Nobody goes up on a wet or iced roof to make a deadline, and a locked or vacant property with no confirmed way in costs a day. Give us the option deadline at booking rather than after, and if the calendar genuinely will not hold it, we will say no up front rather than book something we cannot deliver.
Do you have agents who will vouch for you?
Not yet, and manufacturing a few is not on the table. This is a newer lane for us. What we can hand you instead is the work: the same camera scan and the same report format we already produce for homeowners and for managed property files, an inspection you are welcome to run as a one-listing test, and a document you can carry to any other chimney contractor for a competing read. That is a fair way to size up a vendor, and it beats a quote from someone you have never met.
If you find something, do you also bid the repair? Is that a conflict?
We do repair work, so yes, the incentive exists and pretending otherwise would be insulting. The way we handle it is that every finding carries a photograph and the standard it is measured against, and the repair is a separate quote your client can accept or decline. Take the report to another contractor for a competing number. That is a legitimate use of it. A finding that only stands up when we are the ones holding the invoice was never a real finding.
Who does the report belong to, and can I share it?
It belongs to whoever paid for it. If a seller commissions a pre-listing report, it is theirs to attach to a disclosure, to hand a buyer, or to sit on. If a buyer commissions it during an option period, the same applies in reverse. We never forward a report to the opposite side of a transaction unprompted, and one party's report does not quietly get recycled for the other.
Will you tell my client what to ask for in negotiation?
No. We will tell them what the condition is and what the repair costs. What they do with that is between them, you, and the other side, and a contractor leaning into a negotiation is a contractor who has stopped being a credible source of facts. The report is deliberately written so it reads the same whichever side of the table is holding it.
What happens if the flue needs something big?
Then the report says so, with the camera stills behind it and a figure attached. Relining a flue is a real number and it is not a repair anyone should agree to from a verbal description. If the condition cannot be judged without opening something up, we say that too and stop, rather than guessing to fill in a blank. A Level 3 inspection is invasive by definition and generally cannot be scoped, approved, and completed inside a short option period, which is worth knowing before the deadline rather than after.
Talk to a real chimney tech today.
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