Tahoe Chimney & Fireplace · A note to our customers
Feeling Impatient?
A busy season reality: how we ended up in this mess together
It is 6 p.m. in November. Your guests land tomorrow. You light the fireplace for the first time since February, and it smokes. You call us. So do your neighbors.
If you have had trouble reaching us this fall, you were one of those calls. This page shows what is happening on our side, with the numbers behind it, so you can see it for yourself. Some of it is blunt. We mean it kindly.
Every fall our work more than doubles
Our season starts in late July, builds through the fall, peaks in November, and tapers off through February. In between, we have a normal amount of work and a normal crew. We are surviving the slow season so that we can be there for you in the busy season.
Sunlight per day, in hours
Fireplaces to fix per week
Field employees
The shape of our year. About 25 fireplaces a week in a normal month and 50 to 60 at the peak, with 3 field employees in the slow months growing to 6 at the peak. The months in between are estimates. Sunlight is for Lake Tahoe. Rain and snow are average days per month around Lake Tahoe, so a month with few drops or flakes has few wet days.
That is more than twice the fireplaces to fix, in the shortest and coldest days of the year.
The same job, in a much harder season
Slow season
- Long, warm, sunny days, and we stay comfortable.
- Dry roads and easy access everywhere.
- No snow on roofs and no water to deal with.
- Clients are relaxed, have plenty of time, and nobody is in a hurry.
Busy season
- Short, cold, gray days, and dark comes early.
- Rain and snow, and roof work has to stop when the light does.
- Slick, icy roads, with cars sliding and stuck.
- Traffic, tourists and road closures everywhere we go.
- Nearly every call is urgent: guests arriving, kids at home, an event coming up. Patience runs thin.
In the busy season we run seven days a week, with 10-plus hour days.
We can’t hire our way out
The trade is highly technical, and the LIABILITY is too high to just hire anybody.
There are very few people in this trade who are also capable of working hard in winter conditions. The people we add for the busy season are often helpers, so adding people does not add the same capacity.
The lack of affordable housing in Tahoe does not help. Most employees in town, at most businesses here, come in from Reno, so the accessible workforce is small.
The whole heating industry is stretched
We are juggling a flood of calls and emails every day, and coordinating parts that have to be shipped. The same thing is happening across the country. Everyone is sourcing parts, and repairing, fixing or buying fireplaces.
- The manufacturer is
- The distributor is
- The retailer is
- The service worker is
That is the bigger picture. It is not just you. Your neighbors are in the same line, and everyone is cold.
You waited. We didn’t.
That sounds harsh, and it is also ordinary. Your fireplace worked last February, so it was easy to assume it was fine, and then another summer went by. Then the first cold night arrived, it needed attention that same day, and so did your neighbors’ fireplaces. Waiting is human nature. We do it too, with our own things. We are all human.
The line you are standing in is a mirror. Everyone in it waited for the same reason you did.
We are human too
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People
Humans get sick, have emergencies, get tired, and make mistakes. So do we.
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Flu season
The busy season is also flu season. We walk into hundreds of homes a month, and technicians regularly pick something up and pass it around the company. Sometimes we work through it. Sometimes we can’t.
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Vehicles
We keep extra vehicles just for the busy season. They sit all summer, and they still fail and need maintenance.
What waiting costs
Sometimes a repair turns out to be bigger than it looked. We open up a fireplace and find a worn part, or a second problem nobody could see from the outside. In July, that is a small delay nobody notices. In November it can mean an extra visit or a part on order, a long wait in a cold house, and a collision with your own plans. We know how frustrating that is.
The seed was planted when the repair waited for the first cold night, and we say that kindly, because almost all of us do the same thing. We can be the solution, and calling earlier next year makes that easy.
What helps
Most fireplace trouble in November could have been caught in August.
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Next summer
Book your fireplace and chimney service before the season starts, while we have room to take our time and enjoy a lovely relationship with you.
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When you reach out
Leave your address, the make of your fireplace and what it is doing. The more we know up front, the less time a first conversation takes.
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In the meantime
Give us some room. Every technician you are waiting on is in somebody else’s cold house, doing their best.
We are doing our best
The responsibility for the result sits on all sides. We are taking care of our part the best we can, seven days a week through the busy season.
Some days we get yelled at by people who do not realize they helped create the situation. That is not fun, and it does not make the work go faster. Please don’t be one of them. We hope you have some compassion for this process, as we have compassion for you.
To everyone who has waited with patience: thank you. It is noticed. And if you would still rather go elsewhere, we understand. We are sorry we did not earn your business, and we wish you all the best.
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