Chimney inspection and repair in Brooklyn: Seacoast Chimney for area code 718

About homes and winters in area code 718

Area code 718/917/347/929/465 covers four of New York City's five boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, shared with the 347, 929 and citywide 917 overlays. It is an old housing stock: of about 2,708,000 homes and apartments, roughly 81% were built before 1980 and 38% before 1940, and the median home dates from the 1950s. About 12% are single-family detached houses.

Brooklyn, coextensive with Kings County, is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs. It sits at the western end of Long Island, shares a land border with Queens, and is tied to Manhattan by bridges and tunnels across the East River, including the Brooklyn Bridge, and to Staten Island by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Winters bring a real heating season. NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for New York Laguardia Airport, NY show about 4,376 heating degree days a year, a January average of 34.4°F, and about 29.8 inches of snow. Rain and the occasional freeze still work on brick and mortar over the years, so a cracked crown or a missing cap is worth fixing early.

The most common way to heat a home here is utility gas (about 70% of occupied homes, per the Census), followed by heating oil at about 13%. Wood is the main heat in fewer than 2 in 100 homes, so most fireplaces here are for cool evenings, and gas fireplaces and inserts are common. Energy codes place it in IECC climate zone 4A. NFPA 211, the national chimney and venting standard, recommends an inspection every year no matter what you burn.

Sources: Census ACS 2018–2022 (B25034, B25040, B25024); NOAA Climate Normals 1991–2020, New York Laguardia Airport, NY (USW00014732); IECC 2021 climate zones by county (PNNL-33270); NFPA 211; Wikipedia: Brooklyn.