Expert: James Ball - 1/2/2009

Question
I recently had a sweep by my home to clean out my chimney - since it hasn't been done in years, and I'm keen on starting to use it to help with heating costs a bit.

The good news was, my chimney was clean as a whistle already. The bad news was that the sweep poked around in there a bit (I have a brick and mortar type fireplace, in the middle of my home, by the way), and said he found wood underneath the firebox.

He said it was a sort of masons "trick" and posed a fire hazard. What are my options for fixing this, and how much of a hazard is it? Am I able to light a warm blaze for a few hours on a chilly evening without worry? Thanks for your help.

Answer
Hello Nathan, some times when building a fireplace a mason will use wood to support the base of the fire box and not take it out when the cement dry's, this can be very dangers and should be corrected. with out seeing it I can not tell you what you need to do, I would have a local Certified Chimney Sweep (www.csia.org, there you can look up by zip code to find one near you) take a first hand look at what you have and a mason.
James