Sweep & inspection
Caps & crowns
Flue relining
Masonry repair
Gas fireplace serviceLevel 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Fast, Reliable Chimney Sweep Across Inglewood
If you live in Inglewood and your fireplace hasn’t been cleaned in years, the typical chimney sweep here runs $180 to $320 for a standard cleaning and inspection. That’s the number most homeowners in 90301, 90302, 90303, and 90305 should expect. Sherwood Chimney Sweep serves the entire Inglewood area with the same professional-grade materials and the same straight answer every time: we’ll show you what’s actually inside your flue before we recommend anything. Call us at (833) 589-8498 and we’ll schedule a sweep that fits around your week.
Why Sherwood Chimney Sweep Is Inglewood’s Preferred Chimney Sweep Company
Inglewood homeowners don’t need another generalist with a truck and a brush. They need someone who knows what 90 years of marine air does to a masonry chimney on a 1930s Spanish Colonial off Manchester Boulevard. That’s us. Noel Carver runs our Chimney Sweep operation as a specialty trade, not a side gig. We stock parts for the specific failure modes Inglewood throws at us: corroded galvanised caps, crumbling crowns, and original clay-tile liners that have never been inspected since the home switched to a wall furnace.
Our customers across Inglewood keep calling us back because when we say a flue is fine, we show them the camera footage that proves it. When we say a liner needs work, we’ve got the HeatShield certification to restore it without a full tear-out. That’s the difference between a sweep company and a repair company. We’re both.
Styles & brands we work with
Chimney Cleaning in Inglewood
Chimney Cleaning in Inglewood means dealing with two very different scenarios. You’ve either got an active fireplace you use every winter, building up creosote that needs regular removal, or you’ve got a capped chimney that hasn’t seen a fire since the 1960s and needs a different kind of attention entirely. In the first case, we’re removing creosote and soot, checking the flue, and making sure the system is safe to burn. In the second, we’re unsealing, inspecting, and cleaning out whatever’s accumulated in a cold, damp flue for decades.
For a standard cleaning and sweep in Inglewood, expect $180 to $320 depending on flue condition and accessibility. Homes in the flats with easy roof access and a single-story layout hit the lower end. Two-story homes or badly neglected flues run higher. Every cleaning includes a camera inspection so you can see the condition of your liner, not just take our word for it.
Creosote and Soot Removal
Creosote is the reason chimneys catch fire. In Inglewood’s damp marine air, creosote doesn’t just build up as dry soot; it glazes into a sticky, tar-like coating that’s harder to remove and more flammable than what you’d find in a dryer climate like the Inland Empire. We see first-degree and third-degree creosote regularly in active Inglewood fireplaces. Third-degree is glossy, hard, and concentrated fuel for a chimney fire. Removal takes mechanical brushing and sometimes chemical treatment. This isn’t a DIY job and it isn’t optional if you burn wood.
Annual Sweep and Inspection
An annual sweep in Inglewood runs $150 to $200 when the chimney is in good shape and just needs routine maintenance. We combine the sweep with a Level 1 inspection as standard practice. That covers the accessible parts of the flue, the damper, the firebox, and the exterior cap and crown. If your chimney hasn’t been used in years or you’re buying a home in Inglewood, we’d steer you toward a Level 2 inspection instead, which gets into the full interior flue with a camera.
Fireplace Cleaning in Inglewood
Fireplace Cleaning in Inglewood starts with the firebox itself. In the older 1920s – 1940s bungalows across 90301 and 90302, that firebox is often decorative brick or tile with years of soot, ash, and moisture staining baked into the surface. We clean the firebox, remove debris from the smoke shelf, check the damper operation, and vacuum out what’s settled. A standard fireplace cleaning runs $120 to $180 without a flue sweep. Bundle it with the chimney sweep and you’re looking at $180 to $320 total for the full system.
Damper Check and Repair
Old dampers fail. In Inglewood specifically, dampers rust open because of the persistent coastal moisture. When the damper plate rusts open, cold air pours down the chimney in winter, and worse, you can’t properly control the draft when you do burn. We check damper operation on every cleaning call. A replacement top-sealing damper runs $250 to $500 installed, and it’ll stop the draft problem and the rust cycle.
Firebox Cleaning for Gas Inserts
Gas inserts still need attention. Soot, dust, and mineral buildup from the ceramic logs reduce efficiency and can cause the glass to film over. We service gas fireplaces and inserts across Inglewood, including the prefab metal fireboxes in the 1960s – 70s tract homes up in 90305. A gas fireplace cleaning runs $100 to $150 and includes checking the venting, the logs, and the pilot assembly.
Trusted Brands We Service in Inglewood
We don’t install whatever’s cheap. Sherwood Chimney Sweep stocks and installs DuraFlex flexible liner systems, HeatShield ceramic resurfacing materials, Gelco chimney products, and components sourced through Copperfield and Olympia Chimney. That matters in Inglewood because the salt air eats cheap galvanised parts in under a decade. Stainless steel is the only answer for caps and flashing here, and DuraFlex stainless is what we keep on the truck for Inglewood jobs. Faster turnaround, no waiting on a parts order from a supplier that doesn’t know the coastal market.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterCommon Chimney Sweep Problems We See in Inglewood Homes
- Rusted-open damper plates. In the marine layer, original cast-iron dampers rust through and jam open. Cold air pours in all winter and draft control becomes impossible. We replace them with top-sealing models on nearly every older Inglewood home we inspect.
- Spalled exterior brick and crumbling crowns. Decades of fog-driven moisture, plus the salts in that moisture, eat away mortar joints and flake the brick faces. Once the crown cracks, water gets inside the chimney and accelerates the damage. Crown repair runs $300 to $700 depending on severity.
- Capped chimneys that have never been inspected. So many Inglewood bungalows switched to wall furnaces in the 1960s and capped the chimney. Four decades of neglect left dampers rusted, crowns cracked, and caps corroded through. The chimney isn’t safe to reopen until someone looks inside with a camera.
- Undersized flues for modern inserts. Original clay-tile flues from the 1920s – 1940s were built for open fireplaces. Many Inglewood homeowners have since installed gas or wood inserts that need a properly sized liner. An undersized flue means poor draft and smoke blowback, and it’s common in the Spanish Colonial stock throughout 90301 and 90302.
Pricing for Chimney Sweep in Inglewood, CA
Here’s what you should expect to pay for a Chimney Sweep in Inglewood. A standard sweep and Level 1 inspection runs $180 to $320. Add fireplace cleaning and you’re at $220 to $360 total. A Level 2 camera inspection alone runs $250 to $400, and we recommend it for any Inglewood home where the chimney has been capped or unused for more than five years. Damper replacement runs $250 to $500. Crown repair runs $300 to $700. Stainless steel cap replacement runs $150 to $350 installed. These aren’t the cheapest prices in Southern California, and that’s intentional. We use professional-grade parts and we show you proof of every finding. Call (833) 589-8498 for an exact quote. Estimates are free.
We Also Serve Cities Near Inglewood
We’re based in El Monte but our Inglewood route covers the surrounding area every week. If you’re in Westmont, Gardena, West Athens, or West Rancho Dominguez, give us a call. We schedule sweeps by neighborhood, so you’ll get a real appointment, not a vague window that leaves you waiting around.
Serving Inglewood, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Inglewood area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage — if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Chimney Sweep in Inglewood
Yes, and arguably more than an active chimney does. A capped, unused flue hides damage that no one sees until water starts staining the ceiling or the exterior brick starts flaking. In Inglewood specifically, the marine air rusts dampers open and eats through galvanised caps within 10 to 15 years. We’ve pulled caps off 1930s bungalows off Manchester Boulevard that were corroded straight through, letting rain into a flue that had been closed for decades. A Level 2 camera inspection costs $250 to $400 and tells you exactly what’s going on inside. If you’re planning to reopen the fireplace, you don’t want to find out the hard way that the liner cracked in 1978. Call (833) 589-8498 to schedule one.
Culver City sits a little farther from the coast, and a lot of its housing stock is newer construction with modern stainless components. Inglewood’s flats are full of 1920s – 1940s bungalows that were built with galvanised steel caps and flashing, and galvanised steel loses to salt-laden fog every single time. The marine layer that rolls through Inglewood keeps those components damp for hours every morning, and the salt accelerates corrosion to a point where we see 10-year-old galvanised caps with holes in them. Stainless steel is the answer. We install stainless DuraFlex caps and flashing on every Inglewood replacement job, and we stock them on the truck so we’re not making you wait on a parts order.
First-degree creosote is a dry, flaky soot that brushes off easily. Third-degree creosote is a hard, glossy, tar-like glaze that’s concentrated fuel. It’s what actually catches fire in a chimney. In Inglewood’s marine air, creosote tends to form as a sticky glaze rather than dry powder because the flue never fully dries between fires. That means even a fireplace used only on weekends can develop third-degree creosote faster than the same fireplace in Pasadena. Third-degree requires mechanical removal with a rotary head and sometimes a chemical treatment first. If you burn wood in Inglewood, don’t skip a year. The call to schedule is (833) 589-8498.
Yes, and it’s a complaint we hear every autumn. When the Santa Anas roll through Inglewood, the winds push down the chimney and reverse the draft, especially on hillside homes near the 405 where there’s less tree cover to break the force. You’ll notice it as smoke blowing back into the room or a fire that won’t start properly. Sometimes the fix is a vacuum cap that spins to stabilise the draft. Sometimes it’s an undersized flue that can’t handle a modern insert, and the wind just exposes the problem. A Level 2 inspection will tell you which one you’re dealing with. It’s $250 to $400 and we do them throughout Inglewood.
Yes. The 1960s – 70s tract homes in the northern part of Inglewood, zip 90305, mostly have prefab metal fireboxes with factory-built metal flues rather than masonry chimneys. They’re a different animal, but we service them the same way we service the older masonry work: inspect the firebox, check the venting, clean out what’s built up, and look for rust or warping. Prefab systems have a shorter lifespan than masonry, especially in the marine air, and once the metal starts corroding, the safe fix is usually a liner replacement rather than patching. A cleaning and inspection for a prefab unit runs $150 to $250. Give us a call at (833) 589-8498 and tell us what you’re working with.
Written by Noel Carver, Owner at Sherwood Chimney Sweep, serving Inglewood and the surrounding area.