Chimney Services in Ainslie

Century-Old Flues Under Mount Ainslie

Very few Australian suburbs have this much intact original housing stock still doing its original job. Ainslie’s cottages date from the earliest phase of Canberra’s construction, several of its precincts carry heritage listing, and the chimneys standing above those roofs are in most cases the ones the houses were built with. They were not decorative. In the era before mechanical heating they were the entire heating system, and they were sized and built accordingly.

Age is the whole story here. A brick flue approaching a century old has spent every winter absorbing water into its mortar and every Canberra night freezing it — Bureau of Meteorology averages for Canberra Airport put the mean July overnight minimum at or below zero, colder overnight than any other Australian capital. That cycle works joints apart from the top down and strips parging from the inside of the flue where nobody looks. Meanwhile the houses have been re-roofed, insulated and extended around these chimneys, and the flashing has usually been disturbed each time.

Our work in Ainslie is therefore as much inspection and repair as it is sweeping. We camera the full flue, assess the stack and crown above the roofline, and where masonry work is needed we match the original brick and mortar so the finished chimney still belongs to the house. Everything is photographed and dated.

Serving Ainslie & Nearby

FreshDuct sweeps, inspects and repairs Ainslie chimneys 7 days a week — original cottages, heritage precincts and the larger houses running up toward the mountain reserve.

We are across Braddon, Dickson, Turner and Canberra City constantly, so an Ainslie chimney booking is usually easy to fit into an existing inner-north run.