Sweep & inspection
Caps & crowns
Flue relining
Masonry repair
Gas fireplace serviceLevel 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Famco Chimney Cap Installation: The Orlando Owner’s Guide
We install Famco chimney caps throughout Orlando, and most replacements run between $385 and $720 installed, depending on the cap size, flue dimensions, and whether the mounting hardware survived Florida’s humidity. We stock common Famco cap sizes on our trucks, so a good portion of our Orlando jobs get completed on the first visit. The way owners usually find us: they notice water staining on the ceiling near the chimney chase, or they spot rust flakes on the hearth after a heavy summer storm, or a home inspector flags the cap during a pre-listing check. By the time a Famco cap fails visibly, it’s often been silently letting rain and humidity into the flue for a season or two.
Which Famco Models This Applies To
Famco makes a few distinct cap lines, and the compatibility details matter more than most people expect. The two you’ll most often find on Orlando homes are the FC series (single-flue, standard mesh sides, slide-on or bolt-on depending on flue type) and the FCR series (raised-top design for better draft during Orlando’s frequent downpours). There’s also the multi-flue cap, which mounts across a masonry crown rather than a round or square clay tile. If you can’t find a model number, measure the outside dimensions of your flue tile, not the old cap. That’s the most common mistake we see after homeowners replace a Famco cap themselves: they order by cap width instead of tile size, and the base doesn’t seat.
One compatibility gotcha specific to our area: if your cap has been on for more than eight or nine years, the stainless steel mesh may still look fine while the seams at the cap corners have corroded. That’s not a Famco defect. It’s the salt-laden humidity that drifts in from the Gulf coast, meeting creosote residue and sitting on the cap well into the evening. If we’re replacing the cap and the mesh is gone, we’ll tell you whether the Famco cap alone is enough or whether the flue needs a liner assessment too. As an independent service provider, we work with Famco products but aren’t affiliated with the company. We use their caps because the gauge of their stainless steel holds up to Central Florida weather better than most imported alternatives, and because we can get exact replacements quickly when a homeowner needs the same footprint.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your Famco Chimney Cap Installation Is Failing
- Water stains on the ceiling or wall near the chimney chase. This is the one we see most on Orlando homes. The cap’s mesh or base has a gap, rain follows the chase down, and the first sign is a soft brown stain inside the house, often months after the leak started.
- Rust streaks running down the flue or onto the roof. The cap body or the mounting brackets are corroding, and gravity does the rest. Rust on the cap itself is one thing. Rust migrating onto the roof surface can stain shingles and should be addressed before the next storm season.
- You can hear rain dripping in the firebox during storms. That’s water passing the cap or entering through a failed seam. It often collects in the smoke shelf and produces a faint drip you’ll hear from inside the house before you ever see a stain.
- Debris inside the firebox, especially small twigs or pine needles. Orlando’s winds do the damage here. A torn or bent mesh invites Southern longleaf pine needles and oak twigs into the flue. That’s fuel sitting in an area you’d rather keep clean.
- Your damper is rusted stiff or won’t seat closed. Good caps keep the flue dry; failing ones let humidity sit there constantly. Count your damper as an early warning system that your Famco cap is no longer doing its job.
Replacement Cost & What’s Included
Most Famco cap replacements in Orlando, FL, including the part and labor, fall between $385 and $720. The lower end covers a standard single-flue Famco cap on an accessible roof with simple slide-on mounting. The higher end covers larger multi-flue caps, custom anchor layouts, mortared bases, or chase-mounted replacements where we need to re-flash the crown. Every quote includes the written price before any work starts, with the part cost and the labor separated so you can see exactly what goes where.
What’s included on every Famco cap installation: removal and disposal of the old cap, inspection of the visible flue tile while we’re up there, a quick alignment check, and photos of everything before and after. We bring shoe covers and drop cloths into the house every time, even when the work is on the roof, because the path to the roof is the part we got to through your living room.
All our cap work is covered under the 365-Day Done Right Promise. If the cap isn’t seated right, if it leaks within the year, or if we missed something we said we’d check, we come back and we make it right without a new invoice.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterDIY or Call Us?
We won’t pretend this is a tile roof or a steep pitch that’s safe for every homeowner to mess with. What you can safely do from the ground: check for rust streaks, listen for dripping after rain, and note whether wildlife is clustering around the top of the chimney. What gets hard fast: roof pitch, cap removal that fights back with corroded hardware, and mortar-grinding if the base needs to be leveled. On some Florida houses, the roof is slick with mildew growth even in dry weather, which is a fall risk nobody needs.
A Famco cap installed wrong shows its flaws later, usually after the first big storm. The cap may look fine from the ground while water finds a way underneath. If you’re unsure, call us at (850) 940-3442. We’ll take a look honestly. We’d rather tell you the cap can wait than sell you one before it’s needed.
Danny Cortes puts it this way: “Know what’s in your flue before the first fire of the season – everything else follows from that.”
Danny’s been at this trade for more than two decades, from Los Angeles Trade-Technical College to years on Orlando job sites. He handles inspections himself on jobs that need a second set of eyes, and he still keeps a handwritten log of the unusual ones. That level of care is what his crew of background-checked, uniformed technicians follows on every job in the Dr. Phillips area and across the city.
FAQs
A properly installed Famco stainless steel cap typically lasts 12 to 20 years in Orlando, depending on the roof’s shade, the amount of storm exposure, and how often the fireplace gets used. What cuts that lifespan short is a mesh that gets clogged with pine needles and then traps moisture, accelerating corrosion at the mesh body seam. Most failures we see cluster around years 10 to 14. If your cap is older than that, it’s worth an inspection before the next hurricane season, whether it’s Famco or another brand.
Occasionally a loose mounting bracket or a bent spark arrestor can be repaired in place, but the most common failure is the mesh body pulling away from the cap frame, and that can’t be repaired reliably. Once the structural seam is compromised, water intrusion follows and the rust accelerates. We’ll always tell you if a repair is possible, and we’ll show you the photo evidence either way. Our answer comes from what’s actually on your roof, not from what’s easiest to sell. Call (850) 940-3442 and we’ll give you a straight assessment.
Most single-flue Famco cap swaps take under an hour once we’re on the roof, plus the time to set up proper ladder access and lay a safe walking path. Multi-flue caps and any crown re-pointing add time, usually 60 to 90 minutes total. We schedule the work during a window, not a peak hour, and we’ll tell you before we start if the chimney crown or the existing mounting looks worse than expected from the ground.
We stock common Famco single-flue cap sizes on our trucks, along with a few raised-top models that perform well on Orlando’s flat or low-slope roofs, so many jobs finish on the first visit. Less common sizes, variable-width multi-flue caps, and custom crown-mounted configurations get ordered from our supplier, typically a two-to-four day turnaround. We also work with and stock compatible parts from DuraFlex, HeatShield, and Gelco, so if the flue inspection turns up something beyond the cap, we can often address it without a second follow-up visit.
Contact Kindling Chimney Orlando About Your Famco Cap
If your Famco cap is showing rust, letting in water, or just due for a replacement before the next big storm, call us at (850) 940-3442 for a free estimate. We’ll give you a written price before any work begins, use shoe covers and drop cloths on every visit, and leave you with photos of the clean-up before we pull out of the driveway. A live person answers our phone, not a voicemail tree, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And if the work isn’t right, our 365-Day Done Right Promise says we make it right.
Written by Danny Cortes, Owner, Kindling Chimney Orlando at Kindling Chimney Orlando, serving Orlando and nearby areas.