Iosco County
Chimney Service in Iosco County
Iosco County sits on the Lake Huron shore in the northeast Lower Peninsula, with Tawas City as the county seat, East Tawas alongside it and the mouth of the Au Sable River at Oscoda. It is a shoreline and river-recreation county with a heavy seasonal population.
The former Wurtsmith Air Force Base at Oscoda left a stock of mid-century housing behind when it closed, which gives this county an unusual concentration of buildings of a similar age and construction – and therefore of chimneys reaching the same stage of their service life at the same time.
Mid-Century Flues in Iosco County
Housing of that period typically carries clay-tile-lined masonry chimneys, which is a sound design, but tile liners crack under thermal shock and the mortar between tiles washes out over decades. Sixty or seventy years in, cracked and displaced tiles are common rather than exceptional.
Tile damage is invisible from both ends of the chimney – you need a camera in the flue to see it. On any house of this era that has never had a camera inspection, it is the single most informative thing you can have done.