It's not enough you hear them clattering across the roof...

You come home from a weekend in Aspen, pleasantly tired from a few great runs. As you walk into the family room you wonder why it has the definite odor of a porta-potty.

With the maturing of Ft. Collins neighborhoods the raccoon population has increased many fold. With the many trees and abundant water for them they consider the city ideal, and your chimney can become a five star resort. A mama raccoon considers most masonry chimneys as an ideal "hollow tree" in which to establish a den and raise a little family. Along with health considerations [they can carry many serious diseases] they can be very destructive. One customer told us of over $30,000 in damage caused by one of these "cute" creatures.

We can usually chase raccoons out of your smoke chamber but sometimes things happen that can't be foreseen. At the time of this writing we are preparing to extract a raccoon that went down an unconventional chimney, got stuck and died at the bottom with her leg wedged in a section of black chimney pipe. We will have to cut the chimney apart to get to it.

You can get "universal" caps at hardware stores. That means they fit a lot of different sized chimney flues. These caps are not of a very high quality, but they will do the job as long as they last. They generally are not raccoon proof.

We will install a Stainless Steel [lifetime guaranteed] cap that fits your chimney and a raccoon will give up and move on to the next "den". With such a wide selection of "dens" why get yourself worked up over that particular one. Our prices includes installation and taxes.

This Just in...

We got a call a few days ago from someone who though their chimney might be clogged. I went over to do an Inspection for them. There was a free-standing fireplace in the basement with a black pipe connecting it to the basement. It took a while to figure out how to get the pipe apart to be able to get a good look but when I took a look I almost couldn't believe what I saw.

Where the black pipe met the masonry part of the chimney the left hind leg of a very large raccoon was firmly wedged. She had obviously climbed down the 7"X11" interior of the flue and got stuck. Sorry but we were too late to get this one out alive.

The resultant cost is going to be between $1500 and $2500 for removal. We will have to cut it out. The homeowner told us that the last chimney sweep told her that she needed a chimney cap. Lesson learned...