Making the World a More Beautiful Place,
One Chimney at a Time!
UL Listed/Labeled Chimney Crowns, Caps, Shrouds, Chase Pans +
The Crowning Touch
Explore Our Top-Selling Chimney Caps
Dive into the world of superior chimney top design and protection with our curated selection of best-selling chimney caps. Watch our engaging video and browse through a captivating slideshow, showcasing these top-tier products that marry functionality with style. Elevate your chimney experience and find the perfect cap to Crown your Chimney in high style.
Then enjoy the salza background music while you look through our site! 😊
Meet Our Expert
Custom Home Builder Turned Chimney Cap Maker
Chimney King was started in 1992 by an award winning, Swedish custom builder, Derek Lidstrom. He saw the need for real UL listed/labeled chimney shrouds and decided to do something about it. So Derek started making high quality, UL Listed and labeled, custom chimney shrouds in a two car, unheated garage. These shrouds are now listed through UL, Intertek, CSA, and OMNI and sold nationwide and through out Canada.
Our #1 goal is to safely provide you with the most beautiful chimney caps possible. All our products come with a ten year guarantee and are made to last 20. Every shroud we make is built to withstand Cat 5 hurricane winds, no matter where it is going.
Chimney King. The Crowning Touch for your Castle.®
Fit for Royalty. G.O.A.T.’s as Well
Tom Brady got the The Crowning Touch!
The greatest Quarterbacking mind the world has ever known, Tom Terrific Brady, equipped his own home with Chimney King copper caps.
Setting atop the steadfast masonry of MJM Masonry's Mark McCullough (This Old House's charming masonry expert) are 5 very sexy, 5C La Mons chimney shrouds, w/ Lightning Rods in 20 oz hvy copper.
The Chimneys were waterproofed to Mark's satisfaction with a designer SS chase pan (that's forever) with a built in 2 x 6 edge profile.
New England contracting legend, Jack Scanlon, put all the Brady's ideas, MJM, and Chimney King beauty caps together for a very smooth look.
Stay tuned for a teaming of MJM Masonry, Mark McCullough and Chimney King on an exciting 2024 episode of This Old House.
Logo Caps
Harder Working Caps for Business Chimneys and Fun People
Kohl's Resort in Bemidji, MN created an iconic look for their lakefront lodge that will last a lifetime In their customers memories. If you happen to visit this little piece of heaven, fish with Randy Klasen, he is a walleye guru.
Snowbelt Fireplaces in Stevens Point now has a display that wordlessly says "We are Snowbelt Fireplaces, we sell fancy caps, we also sell Cornice Pans" all by itself! Adrian (AD) can tell you a lot more...
Richard Friske, the Apple King of N. Michigan, couldn't resist adorning his personal homes chimney, with a touch of his family's 3 generation legacy. Maybe our nicest Logo Cap yet. Picture coming soon.
Wild Horse Homes in CO put their Logo under a cool chimney cap. Pretty creative!!
Look - Up in the Sky - It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, No...
It's Super Chase Pans to the Rescue!
Cornice Pans
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They're All The Rage!
Now you can waterproof, architecturally trim, and seamlessly connect back to the chimney chase. Usually a home's chase pan looks like the top of a prison shoe box with a hole. We make those. But if you want a chase pan, a cornice trim and a bottom beauty strip to close up the bottom return all in one perfectly flashed package - this is for you.
There's more ....
Cornice Pans are a 10+ tool Swiss Army Knife of handy!
They can:
- Waterproof the top of chimney
- Give the top of the chimney an architecturally pleasing detail
- Make the top footprint of chase big enough to even have a UL listed shroud in the first place
- Come in a rainbow of colors, finishes, styles and flavors
- Hide a vented chase pan system underneath, complete with screen bottom edge.
- Connect back to the chase at bottom with a beauty strip, thus yielding a perfect finish when you look up from the ground
- Replace a failing masonry cap w/o demo'ing the original concrete chimney cap
- Make an existing chimney 40% larger, so you can safely replace your old, worn out, too small shroud with a new, UL listed and labeled shroud.
- Set the stage for high drama to come
- They look bombity bomb bomb!
UL Listed and Labeled
For Your Safety, Because It’s the Law
All of our listed and labeled shrouds meet the International Mechanical, Residential, Fuel & Gas, as well as the Fire Codes, NFPA 54 & 211.
* Chase, Framing, Fireplace, & Pipe requirements must be met *
Brass Tacks for Firemen - Code Officials and Architects
Old News:
In 1992 in response to a nasty spate of 30 chimney fires in 30 days in Moorpark CA in 1989, the 8 major Fireplace Manufacturers at the time - Heatilator, Heat n Glo, Majestic, Superior/IHP/Marco/Martin, Temco, quietly declared non-listed shroud use prohibited and declared it would void all warranties on fireplace and pipe, via the Wood Heating Alliance - WHA Warning Letter of 1992. Chimney Fires caused by the "estimated millions of non-listed shrouds in place" on chases without vented chase pans were rampant at the time. They still are. Shortly after publishing this WHA liability disclaimer, every single Major Fireplace OEM's sold their companies, once, twice, even three times, after tossing smoke and mirrors at the problem.
Current News:
Since 1998, the Int Mech Code has required all shrouds used with factory built chimney (round metal) to have a proprietary UL Listing and a visible UL label on the shroud for the specific brand and model # of pipe, and the shroud manufacturer listed as well. It was largely ignored. It is now being enforced statewide in CO, UT, CA, and sporadically across the rest of the US.
The Int Fire Code 603.6.3 now calls for the pro active - retro removal of all non listed / labeled shrouds that surround factory built chimney pipe - an estimated 20 million houses are affected. The Int Fire Code is now being enforced on resale of single family and multifamily homes by the building inspector for the lender bank.
*The local Fire Marshall is responsible for enforcing the shroud removal code on Multi-Family and Commercial buildings with shrouds around pre-fabs. Installing shrouds after C/O is not a good long term play anymore. It never was...
Moorpark CA ordered the removal of over 10,000 shrouds, after experiencing 30 chimney shroud fires in 30 days in December of 1989. They shut down builders until they complied.
Vista CA ordered the removal of hundreds of shrouds on several Multi Family Developments and several more subdivisions of single family track homes after a series of shroud related fires terrorized the town. At the time, private Fire Investigator Dan Johnson testified before the Vista City Council that he had been to 12 similar fires in the past two weeks, and his experience was common with the other 500 or so fire inspectors around LA.
Los Angeles has also had to do the same, as has Atlanta. The entire country is affected....Infected?
Breaking News!
Fire in the Firehouse
On February 25th of 2023, the lower floor, upper floor and roof of the quint Montecito Fire Dept #2 caught fire, due to a very attractive Bishops Arch style shroud of the 'non-listed variety' - installed atop a 'non-vented chase pan' with a Superior wood burning fireplace on their chimney. This occurred while the guys played pool and watched Saturday night TV. It took 50 years of having fires in this particular fireplace for the chimney and roof to catch fire, but it finally happened. The inside of the chase was suffering from pyrolysis, a chemical change in wood induced by heat, (charcoalized), from top to bottom and into the attic, making the fire a very fast one. 12 other fire districts responded and helped put out the fire in the firehouse. The Montecito Fire Marshal was chagrined for good reason. It was his job after all to enforce a retro active Int fire Code, during his annual inspection, which he unfortunately did not even know existed, which would have prevented this fire in his own firehouse. Hopefully he will be taking his duties to a higher level. Fires from 'non-listed shrouds' on 'non- vented chase pans' occur more frequently in the Santa Barbara area than anywhere else in the US.
Rob Struble, the former wood products manager at Heatilator, was fond of saying " It is not a matter of if, just a matter of when, an improperly flashed and shrouded chimney catch's fire".... Usually in the middle of the night.
Fire Dept FYI:
The Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Salt Lake City vicinities are the areas where non-listed chimney shrouds combined with non-vented chase pans cause the most fires from November through May, every year since 1975. Loss of both human life and pets is not uncommon. To find chimney fires in your area caused this way, simply google ' your town - chimney fire - news' and you will be amazed at the number of mysterious, un- diagnosed chimney fires that occur all around you for seemingly no reason (smoke and mirrors can go a long way in the wrong hands!) You can contact us for help with any mysterious fires that do not seem to have a cause. We're keen to help.
We wear a white hat. Chimney King is a straight shooting member of BOCA. We wrote, submitted and represented the Int Fire Code 603.6.3 back in 1998 as a political statement. A code calling for the removal of 20 milllion +, non UL shrouds seemed like a long shot. But then lightning struck, and at the 1998 Costa Mesa code hearings, which created the Int Codes, ten members of the Int Mechanical Board hearing the codes, and all 57 code officials in attendance from every corner of the US, walked up to the microphone and for two hours told stories about mysterious shroud fires this code would have prevented. After this the code passed into the Int Code in a unanimous vote, then went unchallenged by the factory built fireplace and chimney industry, and it became an official Int Fire Code in June of 1999. This code gives the Fire Dept the ability to cite any non-listed shrouds on multi-family dwellings (which is where 50% of all shrouds set) as well as commercial buildings, both of which the Fire Marshall is required to inspect annually. It has also been used to force entire subdivisions of single family homes to remove their shrouds. If you are a code official, please share this with your fire marshall and vice versa.
FIRE IN THE FIREHOUSE!
Op-Ed: Montecito Firehouse Chimney Fire Could Have Been Prevented, And So Can Yours
Published by
October 13, 2023
By Derek Lidstrom
At 7:20 PM on February 25th of 2023, the lower and upper floors, attic, and roof of the quaint Montecito Fire Department Station 2 caught fire.
This occurred while the firefighters hung out on a quiet Saturday night.
Without warning or fanfare, a fire started at the base of the outside wall of the stucco chimney chase, 2 feet behind the metal fireplace. It raced up the wall to the attic within minutes of starting.
Around this time the firefighters inside smelled smoke and commenced searching for the source. Someone went outside and discovered the chimney fire. The crew of station #2 instantly threw themselves into action and began controlling the fire. Crews from four other fire districts eventually helped put out the fire.
Talk later over s’mores was probably of the similar nature of this fire to a number of other recent ‘mysterious fires’. All the fires inexplicably started in the framed wall, behind the back wall of the actively burning, perfectly intact, pre-fab fireplace …. For no apparent reason.
But there was a reason. Five in fact.
#1: A very attractive Bishops Arch style shroud of the ‘non-listed variety’ – (shroud should be UL listed and have a visible UL labeled and made to its UL spec’s, rerouted smoke into inside of chase cavity)
#2: No ‘Vented Chase Pan’ with a 20-year-old Superior wood burning 8 DM chimney pipe inside. (Pan should sit on 1″ tall spacers that go between top of chase and bottom of pan, pan also req’d to be 1″ wider than chase top, bottom of 1″ wide side space to be screened – which allows interior heat build-up to vent to the exterior unimpeded)
#3: There was less than 12″ of pipe, separating the pan and termination cap. (There should have been at least 12″ of pipe under term cap)
#4: The shroud had no screen. (The shroud should have had 1/2″ screen over all openings)
#5: The shroud was undersized, 28 w x 28 l x 28 h without 3″ side leg gaps. (The shroud needed to be at least 34 w x 34 l and 34 tall, with 3″ side leg gaps)
The undersized shroud in effect, temporarily staged the 600 degree flue gases from the fire inside the shroud, where the open end of the double wall flue cooling system is. The double wall, air cooled, chimney pipe then had no choice but to pull hot gases down its side (instead of cool fresh air) to try and cool itself. Without the spacers under pan the heat was trapped.
How a Factory Built, Double Wall Chimney Works
When a fire starts and hot smoke rises up the inside pipe, a current of air is hydrosiphoned down one side of the outer wall pipe. When the air gets to the bottom it makes a 180 degree turn and it leaks a little extra air or smoke – then goes up and out the other side of the pipe.
With fresh air, this system works fine. But when smoke is contained in the shroud, it is also pulled down the pipe, it leaks at each outer pipe connection – which are not air tight – and smoke quickly fills the chimney cavity for the duration of the fire. The heat leakage is worse at the bottom due to the 90 degree turn. Which is why most fires start at the bottom, behind the firebox of the fireplace. The smoke causes pyrolysis (a chemical change in wood induced by heat) to the framed chase and the entire inside of the chase gets turned into charcoal.
Exacerbating this situation was the lack of a vented chase pan. The metal chase pan was not sitting on 1 1/2″ spacers, so the interior of the chase had no chance to dispel any of the smoke / build up, and transfer fresh air back in its place.
FYI – The factory built Fireplace and Chimney Manu’s added the spacer requirement very quietly to their fireplace instructions around 1985 via an addendum, so quietly in fact that practically no fireplace dealer in the US ever bothered to start installing them. Perhaps because all wood pre-fab fireplaces dating back to 1956 needed this little elevated / vented chase pan detail and a recall would have killed the industry?
Well it took less than 20 years of having fires in this particular firehouse for the chimney and roof to catch fire. Since the chase was suffering severe pyrolysis from top to bottom, it made this fire lightning fast. Most fires of this sort start in the middle of the night, sound like a jet airplane is landing in the attic, then fire starts falling through the ceiling.
Montecito Fire Marshal Aaron Briner was at a loss for words. It was his job to enforce the Int fire Code 603.6.3 that calls for the removal of all non-listed shrouds, which he admitted to me “he did not know existed” and then he expressed skepticism that a fire code could even be retroactive. Fire Marshal Briner is likely not the only Fire Marshall unaware of this Code. But what is certain is Fire Marshall Briner would have prevented this fire in his own firehouse if he had enforced the Fire Code 603.6.3
And maybe a lot more all over town.
For the Record: It is the Fire Marshalls job to inspect all multi-family dwellings and commercial buildings annually, and enforce all new and existing Int Fire Codes. Hopefully he will be taking his duties to a higher level. Fires from ‘non-listed shrouds’ on ‘non-vented chase pans’ occur more frequently in the Santa Barbara area than anywhere else in the US.
Rob Struble, the longtime wood products manager for Heatilator Fireplaces, was fond of saying, “It is not a question of if, just a question of when a shroud will start a fire.”
To see for yourself, google ‘Santa Barbara, chimney fire, news, 2022 / 2023’. You can see the fires, the shrouds, the chase pans with no ‘air gap to house’, and you can see our firefighters saying -‘ Another mysterious chimney fire is under investigation’.
How about if our beloved firefighters instead said, “Investigation over, it’s go time!”
By Derek Lidstrom
A Mission for
Continued Excellence
The Purpose of Chimney King is to provide an outlet for high quality, custom-sized, architecturally inspired, listed and labeled, safe to use, Chimney Shroud Caps that meet the standards of the International Building Codes.
Further, we are diligently committed to providing the deepest reservoir of strength to draw upon when faced with design challenges that are beyond comprehension.
We are dedicated to making the world a more beautiful place!
Our Work and Chimney Service
Stands Out
Our caps have adorned the Showcase Home at the 2002 and 2003 International Builders Show, graced the cover of magazines like BUILDER and Alternative Energy, and five of them sit atop the just completed Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece ‘Massaro House’ in Mahopac, NY. (The Massaro House and its caps are to be featured in a PBS documentary coming soon) Our new ‘Desert Tiles’ design won 2nd place for best new product of 2009!
We put our money where our mouth is. Big builders like Signature, Richmond American, Green Briar, Centex and Pulte have taken advantage of our ‘Free Caps for model homes’ promotion and sold more fireplace options because of it. Custom builders have taken advantage of our ‘50% off Parade Homes’ promotion and have given their homes a unique market advantage.
Custom Chimney Crowns
For Homeowners
Whether you live in a multi-million dollar estate or a typical family home, Chimney Kings custom made, handcrafted chimney crowns will improve the appearance of your home. We use our years of experience to suggest the best color, design and finish that compliments your home's style and character. With our endless selection of chimney crowns to choose from, we have the perfect solution for your home's chimney.
Experienced and Talented
Chimney Architects
Chimney King is designed to be an oasis of beautiful, architecturally correct, high quality, custom chimney Caps / Crowns / Shrouds. We also strive to be a bastion of quality and safety. Our chimney shrouds can carry a UL Listing and UL Label and our guarantee is ten years. Our chimney shrouds meet the requirements of the International Building Codes, when they are used in conjunction with compatible factory built fireplaces and chimneys - per the instructions.
Any Kind of Chimney Shroud You're Looking For
Chimney King now makes over 150 styles of custom chimney caps / shrouds / crowns. We also have added 12 new styles of cornice pans / enhanced chace pans to our menu. We have been serving the needs of Chimney Sweeps since 1992. Our selection of custom chimney caps, chase pans, range hoods, false chimneys, bay window roofs - make us a very handy company for the industrious ‘Chimney Professional’ to have around.
Numerous Colors and Finishes
For a Unique Chimney!
Chimney King offers a large selection of options for our many Chimney Caps. Our Philosophy is it is better to have too many options than not enough! With over 90 different painted steel colors and material finishes (including aged copper, aluminized steel, and galvanized steel) to choose from, the results are endless.
Estimate Form
Please send us current pictures of your home and chimney and dog (we love dogs), blueprint elevations, and your view. Then we can understand the Feng Shui of your situation. We are originally high end, award winning, custom home builders and dog lovers. We still love dogs....
Please fill out the form to the best of your ability. This will help us to give you a correct price, as well as an accurate assessment of your situation, including UL Listing requirements for your specific brand and model of chimney pipe, and identify which addendums to the OEM's inst. instructions for the chimney apply.
FYI: Safe, high quality, UL Listed / Labeled 'open top' shrouds - the most popular style - often involve a little extra thought, since the 8 major Fireplace OEM's did not design pre-fab, factory built, zero-clearance fireplaces with shrouds in mind in the first place 60 years ago. Shrouds with Wood Fireplaces always require a 40% larger chase top than normal. 2" clearance to combustibles applies to the pipe inside the chase... The pipe and termination cap and shroud requirements are a whole new ballgame. Above the chase top, you need more like a 9" clearance, to the outside bottom edge of your shroud. 40% of the Pre-Fab Fireplace brands on the market do not even allow shrouds. Check the fine print regarding shrouds before you commit to a pre-fab fireplace.
HHT does the best job of making custom, UL listed / Labeled shrouds available to their customers. IHP on the other hand, does not have any custom UL listed and labeled shrouds available for it's customers.
** Roofed and House shrouds can be smaller than open tops shrouds.
** Pot shrouds are plain tricky and don't work at all with wood burners.
Filling out the order form before contacting us will considerably speed up the time for us to return a quote for your new custom cap!
If you have any problems or questions regarding the form below, please Contact Us.
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Chimney Caps FAQs
