The Chimney Evidence Observatory
A directory should show its blind spots.
Original, reproducible counts from our published company records. See where information is present, where it is missing and what that means before you hire.
Published company records
8,356
State / DC areas represented
51
Data refresh
Hourly
Finding 01 / Information coverage
A field can be present without being independently verified
Our analysis measures whether a record contains information. A website entry is not a website uptime test. A credential entry is not a current certification check. Recorded insurance can be affirmative or negative; its presence is not proof of coverage.
Website6,169 / 8,356 records · 74%
Service categories7,843 / 8,356 records · 94%
Credential information1,790 / 8,356 records · 21%
Insurance status (yes or no)735 / 8,356 records · 9%
Company description0 / 8,356 records · 0%
Finding 02 / Geographic coverage
Where the published records are based
These are directory counts, not market shares or estimates of all operating chimney companies. Separate branches may have separate records. A city shown in a service area is not counted as an additional business location.
California677Pennsylvania545New York536Texas467New Jersey377Ohio360Virginia302Massachusetts283North Carolina272Illinois271Washington267Michigan249Maryland244Florida241Georgia224Connecticut218Missouri215Wisconsin190Indiana184Colorado167Oregon157New Hampshire145Minnesota141Tennessee135Alabama125South Carolina120Oklahoma106Maine104Kentucky98Louisiana79Arkansas76Kansas75Vermont68Idaho64Arizona63Mississippi61Iowa57Nebraska57New Mexico47Utah44Rhode Island39Montana33Nevada30Delaware28West Virginia25Wyoming25Alaska23District of Columbia13North Dakota12South Dakota12Hawaii5
Local research / Housing history
A separate source for the places we cover
Local pages also draw from the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 ACS five-year table B25034, Year Structure Built. We publish the total housing-unit estimate, the pre-1940 estimate and the 2010–2019 estimate, each with its published margin of error. These counts do not identify chimneys, heating fuels or defects.
We join the official geography and table files by Census GEO_ID, retain numeric estimates and margins of error, and match state/place names conservatively. Unambiguous Census places are preferred; New England county subdivisions can supply town records where no place match exists. Ambiguous and unmatched names are omitted. The full Census geography label remains visible so readers can distinguish a municipality, CDP or town from a postal service area.
The reproducible importer records source URLs, retrieval time and SHA-256 checksums. Figures are a period estimate, not a real-time housing count. The guidance connecting building history to questions for a contractor is our editorial interpretation. Census source files and documentation.
Method and limitations
- Include active records passing our chimney-focus, minimum completeness and phone-presence filters. Exclude records held for identity review.
- Count each published database record once. We have not independently proved that every record represents a unique trading business.
- Count nonempty website and description fields, nonempty service and credential arrays, and known insurance status.
- Group by the recorded business state. Do not infer customer location or travel radius.
- Cache results for one hour. Corrections and imports can change the counts.
What this study does not measure
Workmanship, safety, customer satisfaction, appointment availability, current licence validity and actual service prices. No contractor survey or independent inspection study has been conducted for this analysis.
Use the results to identify questions—not to label businesses as good or bad. A missing credential field may simply reflect incomplete source coverage.
Snapshot calculated 2026-09-24T03:16:21.070Z. How company ordering differs from this research.