Mike Lowe

Founder

Mike Lowe was attending school in Denver after having served in Viet Nam in the US Navy in the 1970’s. As with many students, he looked for weekend work to make ends meet and by good fortune, he was asked to apply at and was hired at one of the oldest chimney companies in Denver. The 1970’s were the real beginning of the chimney industry in the United States after an article-advertisement was run in the Mother Earth News- you can google “Mother Earth News Chimney Sweeping” to read the original article for a little history.
As happens in any industry, companies fail or cease to exist. And Mike took the opportunity of losing his job to create his own business in Denver that still exists successfully to this day. By then, Mike had a family and chose to make the chimney business his full occupation to provide for his family, who helped him in many ways. By virtue of the work and cold weather and using the fireplace for heat, Mike found himself serving as a consultant for the insurance industry as there was a frequency of chimney-related home fires due to lack of maintenance and poor construction. Little did he know that the skills he came to possess due to his insurance work in Denver would also transfer with his relocating to Los Angeles due to a job relocation by his wife.
After relocating to Los Angeles, Mike decided to pursue other employment choices and in spite of enjoying success, he was called back to his fondness of having his own company and working in the chimney industry. Yes, it is a dirty job and someone has to do it, but it also allows you to enjoy the company of new people everyday and provide them with answers to their fireplace and chimney problems.

Mike started Chimney Doctor in late 1993, just months before the 1994 earthquake. And for the following several years, his days were filled with doing inspections for the insurance industry and he attributes most of his current activity to the changes and improvements that occurred in the industry after the 1994 earthquake. He feels that the scrutiny applied to fireplaces and chimneys in the Los Angeles area exceeds any other area of the country and for good reason- the inspections of the earthquake-damaged chimneys also revealed that there were significant amounts of prior construction defects in those very same fireplaces and chimneys.

As time has moved on, Chimney Doctor has transitioned into being an inspection company only, as an example, in the escrow due diligence inspection industry. This allowed him to bring all the knowledge and experience of nearly 40 years in the industry to homeowners with no potential conflict of interest, by not performing any corrections or repairs that may need to be done after the inspection and findings were done.
The chimney industry has evolved significantly in the last few decades, not only in understanding and education, but also in the tools that allow us to do our jobs. It has become a very technical field and with that come new players. By good luck and good fortune, Mike had observed some of the technical reports written by another inspector in Los Angeles, Rory Foley and had found his work product to be well above the norm- in other words, he knew his stuff and also how to express it in a written report. And then the good luck and good fortune came in to play when Rory contacted him to ask if he could become part of Chimney Doctor. The answer was a resounding “yes”. Along with Mike adding to Rory’s skills and knowledge, Mike has also been able to take on some new knowledge and understandings from Rory and has proven that an old dog actually can learn new tricks. And to add to the story, Rory offered the help of several of his family members, including his wife Amy, who have “wrestled” away some of the demanding duties of running an office from Mike and Rory so that they can spend more undivided time helping homeowners with their fireplaces and chimneys.
And that is the story of Chimney Doctor in Los Angeles.