If you don’t have Plano Chimney Caps installed atop your chimney, Santa Clause’s cookie crumbs won’t be the only mess needed to be cleaned out of your chimney this winter…
Chimneys are built for 3 purposes and 3 purposes alone; to allow a draft in the house from the outside to keep a fire going, to ventilate the smoke from the fire, and to serve as Santa’s entry point into your home to deliver gifts. These are not designed to serve as homes for raccoon, squirrels, birds, skunks, opossums, or the like. But that’s exactly what will happen if you chance this winter season without Plano Chimney Caps.
I moved from the Houston area to North Texas to go to school. Instead of making a four hour drive to Houston like I do for every other holiday, I spend Thanksgiving Day with the only family member that I have here, my uncle. Uncle Stanley has a beautiful home in Plano that has a traditional masonry chimney and fireplace. My uncle is the mushy type to sit in a circle around a fire and have each person say what they had been thankful for that year. Last thanksgiving, we did just that. After dinner, the 5 of us, Uncle Stanley, his two children, and wife sat around the fireplace while he started the fire.
The fire started to get a good blaze and we hear a little rustling coming from the chimney. It stopped shortly after it began, so we thought nothing of it and commenced our session of giving thanks. Uncle Stan sits down in the circle and starts off. “I’m thankful for you all being here to celebrate another year. I’m thankful for the wonderful food pre-…” The rustling started up again, but this time it was accompanied by high pitched screeches. The five of us, startled, jumped up and ran outside to analyze the noise. The screeches got louder and then we saw the devastating sight revealing the source of the screeching.
Struggling to climb out of the top of the chimney was a family of raccoon! Immediately, Uncle Stanley runs in the house and douses the fire with water. Little did he know, that was the biggest mistake to make because the house insidiously filled with smoke. Back outside, the raccoon family managed to break free from the blazing chimney and on to another roof. This made for a very interesting Thanksgiving night. We had to open all of the windows in the house to let the smothering smoke out. It was simply a mess; a mess that could have been prevented if Uncle Stanley had Plano Chimney Caps installed.
