Herscher chimney raccoon: what we found on the smoke shelf and how we closed the door for good

By Jacob Dove, Friendship Chimney Sweep

The noise behind the firebox

The house is a ranch on the edge of the village with farm fields on two sides and a tree line along the back of the lot. Its brick chimney serves a wood-burning fireplace that had not been used since the previous winter, and like a lot of chimneys built decades ago, it never had a cap. In early spring the owner started hearing scratching at dusk and a high chirping during the day, coming from behind the fireplace doors. She called us before lighting anything, which was the right move.

A flue without a cap is an open, dry, dark shaft, and to a raccoon it looks a lot like a hollow tree. They climb the brick easily, drop down the flue, and settle on the smoke shelf, the flat ledge behind the damper where the firebox transitions into the flue. It is warm, protected, and out of reach of predators, which is why spring litters so often turn up there.

Why you never smoke them out

The first instinct many people have is to light a fire and drive the animal up and out. Please do not. A mother raccoon will not abandon her young, and the kits cannot climb yet. A fire traps them, fills the flue with nesting material that can ignite, and leaves an animal in distress in a place no one can easily reach. Closing the damper and hoping is not much better, because a trapped animal will tear at the damper and can end up inside the house.

On this job we confirmed the den with a camera from the firebox side, kept the damper closed and the fireplace doors latched, and coordinated with a licensed wildlife control operator, because in Illinois removing and handling wildlife is their job, not ours. Once the mother and kits were out and the operator gave the all-clear, we took over.

What we pulled off the smoke shelf is typical [Observed]: several contractor bags worth of leaves, twigs and insulation fibers, droppings and urine-soaked debris, and a thick mat pressed against the back of the damper plate. That material blocks the draft, holds moisture against the masonry, carries parasites and odor into the house, and is highly flammable once a fire is lit below it. We removed it by hand, swept the full flue, sanitized the smoke chamber, and ran the camera the whole length to check for damage. Here the flue tiles were intact, but the damper hinge had been bent and needed adjustment before it would seal again.

Closing the door for good

The fix that actually ends the problem is a properly fitted chimney cap with a mesh screen, anchored to the crown or the flue tile, not just set on top where a determined animal can push it off. Homes around Herscher sit close to open land and wooded fence rows, so raccoons, squirrels and birds are constant neighbors, and an uncapped flue will be found sooner or later. We installed a stainless cap sized to the flue with mesh small enough to stop birds and squirrels as well, and checked the crown under it for cracks while we were up there.

Jacob Dove, our founder and team leader with 29 years in the trade, has handled more of these spring calls than he can count, and his advice is the same every time: cap the chimney before nesting season, not after. We work to the NFPA 211 standard, we are Insured & Bonded, and cap and sweep pricing is published on our pricing page. If you hear anything moving in your flue, keep the damper closed and call us 7 days a week from 7am to 9pm at (815) 449-4264.

If this sounds like your house: we handle chimney caps and crowns across Kankakee County, and our Herscher page covers what we usually find there. Call (815) 449-4264, 7am to 9pm, any day.

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