Animals or Birds Nesting in the Chimney
What’s Happening
Scratching sounds, rustling, chirping, or a faint animal smell coming from your fireplace almost always mean something has found its way into your chimney – a bird, a squirrel, a raccoon, or, more quietly, a colony of bats. The fix starts with a professional chimney cleaning and inspection to remove the nest, clear any debris, and protect the opening so it cannot happen again.
A chimney is, from an animal’s perspective, a hollow tree: warm, dark, sheltered from weather and predators, and open at the top. Without a properly fitted chimney cap, your flue is an open invitation. Nesting material – dry twigs, leaves, feathers, and fur – packs into the flue liner and blocks the airflow your fireplace needs to draft correctly. That blockage raises carbon monoxide risk the moment anyone lights a fire. Beyond the blockage, a nest carries parasites, pathogens, and in some cases, protected bird species with legal complications. This is not a problem to wait on.
Why It Happens
No Chimney Cap, or a Cap That Has Failed
The single most common reason animals get in is a missing or broken chimney cap. Caps take weather abuse year after year – freeze-thaw cycles crack the mesh, wind torques the frame, and rust works quietly until the screen pulls away from its mount. If you can get a safe look at your roofline with binoculars and see no cap at all, or a cap sitting at an angle, that is almost certainly your entry point. A properly fitted cap is the first thing your local Hearthstone Chimney Co. team will address.
Chimney Swifts – A Special Case
Chimney swifts are a federally protected migratory bird, and they genuinely prefer open masonry flues. If the sounds you hear are a rapid, high-pitched chattering – almost like a machine gun chirp – and they arrive around dusk in spring or early summer, you very likely have swifts. You cannot legally remove them or their active nest until the birds have migrated south in late fall. Your local Hearthstone Chimney Co. team can confirm the species, document the condition, and schedule a cleaning and cap installation for after migration so the problem is solved before next season.
Damaged or Deteriorated Flue Liner
Smaller animals – bats are the classic example – can slip through gaps and cracks in a damaged clay tile liner, not just through the top opening. If you hear sounds that seem to come from inside the wall rather than from above the firebox, or if you are finding animals in the room itself rather than in the firebox, liner damage is worth investigating. A Level-2 camera inspection will show exactly where the breach is, with photographs you can look at yourself while the technician explains what they mean in plain English.
Blocked or Stuck Damper Left Open
A damper that is stuck in the open position – which happens to plenty of older throat dampers after years of rust and heat cycling – leaves a clear passage from the firebox into the flue. If you reach up into your firebox and feel a draft even when the handle or chain says “closed,” the damper is either stuck or failing. Animals that make it past a compromised cap will drop straight down to your firebox through an open damper. You will know this has happened when you find a bird or squirrel already inside the room.
What to Do Right Now
- Stop using the fireplace immediately. Lighting a fire with a nest in the flue creates a serious carbon monoxide risk and can ignite the nesting material directly. Do not use the fireplace again until a professional has inspected and cleared the flue.
- Close the damper if you can do so safely from below. Reaching up into the firebox to close the damper throat keeps animals from dropping further into your living space. Do not climb on the roof to inspect the cap yourself – that work belongs to someone with the right footing and equipment.
- Seal the firebox opening loosely with a towel or cardboard. If an animal is already in the firebox or has gotten through, closing off the firebox opening slows its movement into the room while you wait for help.
- Photograph or note what you can see and hear. Time of day the sounds occur, what they sound like (scratching vs. chirping vs. thumping), any smell, and whether you have spotted the animal – all of this helps the technician arrive prepared. If you can safely take a photo of your chimney cap from the ground with a phone camera, do it.
- Call (844) 803-1545 now. A live person answers every hour of every day. The sooner the flue is inspected and cleared, the sooner your fireplace is safe to use again – and the less likely a larger nest or secondary damage goes undetected.
How We Fix It
When your local Hearthstone Chimney Co. technician arrives, the first step is a Level-2 camera inspection of the full flue. That gives us a documented picture of the liner, the damper, and the cap – everything you need to understand what actually happened, not just what it looks like from the firebox. You see the photos. We give you a plain-English verdict.
From there, the job typically involves a thorough chimney cleaning and sweep to remove all nesting material, blockages, and animal debris from the flue. If the cap is missing, cracked, or compromised, we install a properly fitted replacement – Gelco, Famco, or Copperfield caps depending on your flue configuration – so the opening is secure against re-entry. If the inspection reveals liner damage, we walk you through those options before any work begins.
Most of this is handled in a single visit. Before anything starts, you receive a written estimate – the number on the estimate is the number on the invoice, no surprises. And every job is covered by our 90-Day Done Right Promise: if it is not right, we come back, in writing, no arguing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes – a blocked flue is a carbon monoxide hazard the moment you light a fire, and nesting material is dry enough to ignite. Beyond the immediate fire risk, animal debris carries bacteria and parasites that can work their way into your home over time. This is not a situation to put off until the weekend. Call (844) 803-1545 and we will get someone out to you.
Your local Hearthstone Chimney Co. team schedules jobs as quickly as possible, and because our phones are staffed by a live person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you are not leaving a message and hoping. Call (844) 803-1545 right now and we will tell you exactly what availability looks like in your area – no guessing, no callback queue.
No. Do not try to remove a nest, reach into the flue, or handle any animal yourself – raccoons and bats in particular carry real health risks, and disturbing an active nest can cause the animal to retreat deeper into the liner. Leave the damper closed if you safely can, keep people and pets away from the fireplace, and let the technician handle the rest on arrival.
Not if the root cause is addressed. Most repeat intrusions trace back to a cap that was never installed, or one that failed and was not replaced. A properly fitted stainless chimney cap – installed and covered by our 90-Day Done Right Promise – closes the entry point that made your flue attractive in the first place. We will show you exactly what was installed and why before we leave the job.
Get It Fixed
Call (844) 803-1545 right now – a live person answers every hour, every day. Your local Hearthstone Chimney Co. team will inspect the flue, clear the nest, and protect the opening so it stays clear. We’ll give you a written estimate before anything starts, and we stand behind every job.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner and Master Sweep at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving local communities across the country since 1984.