Nashville Home Inspection | Middle Tennessee

There is just something about those historic Nashville neighborhoods that gets you every time. You’re touring a renovated older home, walk into the living room, and there it is: a gorgeous, original fireplace.

You can already see yourself curled up on the couch with a fire crackling on a chilly Tennessee evening. That charm is exactly why you wanted an older home, right?

But before you start picking out your favorite firewood, we want you to take a second and look a little closer. As Nashville home inspectors with over 13 years of experience poking around these beautiful old houses, we’ve seen plenty of “dream” fireplaces that are actually just expensive wall decorations.

Look Before You Light 

The first thing we do when we see a fireplace in a renovated home isn’t admiring the mantle; it’s looking at the roof. Believe it or not, we’ve seen plenty of homes where the fireplace looks perfect inside, but the chimney was actually removed above the roofline during a previous renovation.

If the chimney is still there, our next move is to get down on hands and knees with a flashlight. We are looking up into the flue area to see what’s really going on. In many older Nashville homes, these chimneys have been:

• Capped or blocked off because they were no longer structurally sound.
• Stopped up to prevent drafts or critters from getting in.
• Severely deteriorated inside, where you can’t see it from the couch.

The last thing you want to do is light that first “celebration fire” after closing, only to have your brand-new living room fill with smoke because the flue was sealed shut.

Coal vs. Wood: Know Your History

In many of our turn-of-the-century homes, those fireplaces weren’t even designed for wood. They were built for burning coal. Those shallow fireboxes are charming, but they can’t safely handle the heat or the size of a modern wood log. Attempting to use them as a standard fireplace is a major fire hazard.

How to Not Get Burned

If you’re falling in love with a home because of its fireplace, here’s our advice to keep your investment safe:

1. Don’t assume it works: Just because there are logs sitting in it doesn’t mean it’s functional.
2. Get a professional look: At DILIGENT, we inspect the fireplace as part of our standard home inspection to identify obvious red flags and blockages.
3. Call in the specialists: If we find concerns, we often recommend a Level 2 chimney scope. A specialist can tell you if it can be fixed, if it needs a gas insert conversion, or if it should stay strictly decorative.

We want you to enjoy every bit of that Nashville charm, but we want you to do it safely. Don’t let a hidden chimney issue catch you off guard during your due diligence period.