My 30-year-old house is in Reseda, California. We bought our house about 8 years ago and we have never used or bothered ourselves with the only fireplace we have. The gas line has been completely shut off even before we bought the house. However, it is obvious that something is wrong with the chimney. Every winter, we see water inside the fireplace after a hard rain. Friends told us that we might only need to fix the cap, although we are not sure. We also see that the fireplace itself is falling apart (it is made of bricks). Since we don't use the fireplace, we don't intend to designate a big budget to fix it (especially now that everybody's budget is hurting!), but we still need to do what we need to do! How can we fix the leaking problem and the appearance of the fireplace with minimum budget, and what business should we contact? I called some local businesses, but they kept telling me that they would only clean the chimney and do inspection. What type of business should I contact to fix our problem? Any advise and help is welcomed and extremely appreciated.
