City Urged to Inspect Fireplaces : Moorpark: Residents of Northview tract say problems exist in many houses. They want the council to take action.

A group of Moorpark residents, alarmed that their fireplaces and chimneys may be unsafe, have banded together in an effort to persuade the City Council to inspect the devices and, if necessary, order the developer to install replacements.

During a routine inspection of a metal fireplace and flue in the city’s Northview tract last month, inspector Dale Feb found that manufacturer’s safety guidelines were not heeded. Among the ignored provisions were minimum required distances between the chimney flue and combustible materials.

Ruth Farabaugh, a member of the homeowners’ association in the tract built by Pardee Construction Co., said the discovery led to more inspections--with the same results. “We thought, my God, maybe we’d better get our fireplaces looked at. In the first day, we did five fireplaces and all of them had problems.”

Feb, owner of D-Way Fireplace Inspection Service, has since made about 15 inspections in Northview and found major problems in all but two of the residences. He has also found dangerous fireplaces in other areas of Moorpark, he said.

At the request of the Northview Neighborhood Homeowners Assn., Feb recently appeared with Farabaugh before the City Council, asking the city to instruct its building and safety inspectors to look at the problem.

Farabaugh said Pardee has been unresponsive to the safety concerns. The developer declined comment Friday.

Farabaugh said city confirmation of Feb’s findings could put pressure on Pardee to replace the fireplaces or to install them correctly.

Since the city contracts with an outside firm for building inspections, it must approve any inspections and pay for them from the general fund. Council members said this week they are reviewing the homeowners’ request.

“I think that, obviously, the city’s going to have to do something about this,” Councilman John Wozniak said. “It’s a little scary to me to think that we may have this potential problem. . . . The fire-burning season is coming.”

Councilman Scott Montgomery said he supports allocating funds to pay for inspections that could confirm what Feb has found. “It appears a significant portion of the ones inspected do have some problems,” he said.

“I think the public health and safety is at stake here, and I think all we’re doing is determining what the problems are,” Montgomery said. “Frankly, it’s a minimal cost. I think the city can negotiate a mass contract with someone at a cheaper cost than these people are paying.”

Feb has been charging homeowners in the Northview tract, situated in the southeast section of the city, $45 per inspection.

During his inspections, Feb said he found that fireplace flues required to be surrounded by at least two inches of air space were in some cases only three-quarters of an inch to one inch from combustible materials. In one chimney, he said, the metal piping was in direct contact with tar paper. Also revealed were fireplaces improperly hooked to the flue and an absence of protective metal sheeting designed to keep a fire from spreading from floor to floor.

Feb said many of the residences also violate a guideline that the top of the chimney must be at least two feet higher than any point on the house within 10 feet of it.

“It’s quite a fire hazard,” Feb said. “These systems have been tested and the minimum requirements determined. Without those, there stands a good chance for a fire.”

Fireplace safety hazards are nothing new to Moorpark officials, who spent more than $50,000 to investigate a rash of chimney fires in 1990. The fires were later linked to decorative metal “shrouds” placed atop the chimneys. Working with the developers who built the housing, the city isolated three types of shrouds, which were found to be dangerous and were removed.

The shroud removal is another sore spot for some residents of the Northview tract, who say Pardee removed the faulty caps and never returned to replace them.