This program covers any chimney, fireplace, or dryer vent inside a homeowners association, condo complex, or managed rental portfolio. That includes a clubhouse fireplace nobody’s touched since the last management company left. And it includes every unit in a townhome row built the same summer, with the same chase cover on top. Same era, same weak point.
What usually gets a board’s attention
Nobody calls about a chimney until something forces the question. Here’s what triggers the request, and what happens once Michael’s on site.
| What the board is seeing | What it usually means | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| A reserve study lists chimney condition as “unknown” | No inspection record exists for any unit in the file | Property-wide inspection, findings logged unit by unit in writing |
| New management company taking over mid-year | The prior company’s files never covered chimneys or dryer vents | A baseline inspection the new company can rely on |
| One owner’s insurer asks for proof of a swept flue | Only that unit has ever been asked to document anything | Inspect the one unit, offer the rest of the building the same visit while the ladder’s already up |
| More than one owner in the same building reports smoke smell | Units built in one phase usually share one weak point | Whole-building inspection instead of chasing each complaint separately |
| A common-area fireplace hasn’t been lit in years | Nobody currently knows if it’s safe to put back on the amenity list | $59 inspection before it goes back into use |
What it costs, per unit
These are the same six starting prices Michael charges on any property, community-managed or not. The invoice doesn’t change for HOA.
| Service | Starting price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney inspection | $59 | Per chimney. Credited to the job if you go ahead, charged if you don’t. |
| Basic chimney cleaning | from $199 | Standard single-flue sweep, per unit. |
| Chimney cap installation | from $350 | Per chimney. Final number set at the inspection. |
| Chimney crown rebuild | from $350 | Per chimney. Final number set at the inspection. |
| Dryer vent inspection | $59 | Per unit. Same credit structure as the chimney inspection. |
| Dryer vent cleaning | from $150 | Per unit. One flat starting number regardless of floor. |
A twelve-unit building isn’t twelve separate estimates. It’s one visit and twelve line items. You can see what it costs before you call for every job on this list. Bigger jobs are different. A batch of matching caps across a row of townhomes, or a shared chimney stack that needs tuckpointing, gets priced on site once Michael’s looked at it.
Michael doesn’t invent a number over the phone, and he doesn’t guess from a photo an owner emailed in.
Call (916) 833-2959, 7am to 7pm, seven days a week, and book the $59 inspection for the first unit or the whole property. It comes off the invoice the moment the board approves the work. So finding out what’s wrong doesn’t cost the association anything it wasn’t already going to spend.
Per-unit pricing, scheduled in blocks
Here’s the part most vendors skip: the paper trail. Michael works in blocks, not one-off visits, and he’ll block off a morning or a full day for a building to work every chimney and vent on the list. Each one gets priced as its own line the moment he finds something. It’s not a lump estimate for “the property,” a number attached to unit 4C and a different number attached to unit 4D, because they’re rarely the same even when the building is.
You get one itemized list and one invoice at the end of the block. Not a stack of separate paper trails for every owner who called in on their own. A ledger. Written the same day, unit by unit. That’s what goes into board minutes or an insurance file, instead of living in someone’s memory until the next annual meeting.
While the ladder’s already against the roofline, most managers have him check the building’s dryer vents in the same pass instead of scheduling a second visit. A load taking two cycles in more than one unit is usually the same restricted duct repeating down the row. So commercial dryer vent cleaning in Sacramento gets scoped into the same block instead of a callback later.
When your community doesn’t need a full property visit
Not every building needs the whole treatment. A unit with a sealed gas-log set that’s never been burned usually has nothing to find. A community built within the last year, where every fireplace was inspected at final walkthrough, is in the same position. One $59 inspection on the specific unit somebody’s asking about answers that question without booking the rest of the property around it.
That’s the whole test.
Clubhouse and common-area fireplaces are usually gas or a decorative log set rather than a wood-burning masonry flue, and that changes what’s on the table. Michael’s licensed under CSLB #1150991, C-29 Masonry, which covers chimney sweeping, inspections, crown and cap work, and masonry repair. It doesn’t cover gas fitting or HVAC, but he’ll tell you what he sees in a gas unit and what it would need, since the work itself sits under a different license classification.
Michael does the work himself. The $59 inspection sets the scope before anything starts.
What identical units tell you
Buildings built in one phase fail in one phase. One crew put the same chase cover on every unit in the same year. So when one starts leaking after twenty-some years, the rest of the row isn’t a different age.
It’s running the same clock, just quieter so far.
Sacramento’s part of that clock. Rain falls here roughly November through April and almost nowhere the rest of the year, so masonry across the property soaks all winter and bakes all summer. That freeze-thaw cycle pops brick and cracks a crown on a schedule, which is why inspecting the whole building costs less over five years than waiting for each unit to fail on its own.
Proof from real jobs
Michael answers every review himself. The account sits at 4.95 across 62 reviews, all replied to personally. You can see photos and write-ups from real jobs before you book anything for the property.
Where this covers you
Michael runs this out of Nevada City, across five counties. Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Sacramento, and Yolo. That includes managed communities in and around chimney sweep in Sacramento, CA, along with the foothill and valley towns in between. If your association spans more than one city, that’s still one vendor and one schedule, not a different contractor for each property line.
HOA chimney questions, answered
Do you work directly with HOA boards and property management companies?
Yes. Michael takes the call from whoever manages the property, whether that’s a board member, a management company, or the owner. He walks the site with that person so findings and pricing go to the right desk the first time, not through a chain of forwarded emails.
How does pricing work across a whole community?
Each chimney, fireplace, or dryer vent is priced at the same starting rate used on a single home. That’s $59 to inspect, from $199 to clean, from $350 for a cap or crown. A twenty-unit property gets twenty line items and one invoice, not twenty separate service calls.
Can a clubhouse or common-area fireplace be inspected the same visit as the units?
Yes. If it’s on the list Michael walks with your property manager or board contact, it’s priced the same way as any other chimney on the property. It’s $59 for the inspection, credited to the job if repair or cleaning is approved afterward.
Do you handle gas fireplaces or HVAC in common areas?
No. Michael is licensed under CSLB #1150991, C-29 Masonry, which covers chimney sweeping, inspections, crowns, caps, and masonry repair. Gas fitting and HVAC sit under a different license classification, so that work isn’t part of what’s quoted through this program.
Is there a standing inspection contract for HOAs?
Each property starts with an inspection. The rest is priced on site after Michael has looked at the systems and access.
What documentation do you get for the board?
An itemized finding for each chimney or vent inspected, written the same day, with a price attached to anything that needs work. That’s what goes into board minutes or an insurance file instead of a verbal summary nobody wrote down.
Get every unit on record before the cold snap
One vendor, one schedule, one invoice.
It holds whether the property has three chimneys or thirty. It starts the same way every time: an inspection, priced per unit, written down the day it happens.
Call (916) 833-2959, any day between 7am and 7pm, and ask for the $59 property inspection. Or get on the calendar before the cold snap and have the first building scheduled without a phone call at all.