Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

At Texas Chimney Experts, we keep things straightforward. This page tells you exactly what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can control it. This Privacy Policy describes the categories of personal information that Texas Chimney Experts (“we,” “us,” “our,” or “TCE”) collects from and about visitors to our website at https://texaschimneyexperts.com, callers to our service lines, customers who request estimates or service, and individuals who interact with our marketing communications. It also explains how we use that information, with whom we share it, the rights you have over your information, and the choices you can make about how we communicate with you.

This policy is a public commitment. Where state, federal, or international law grants you specific rights beyond what we describe below, we honor those rights as a matter of policy and as a matter of law. Where the law and our practices diverge, the more protective standard governs.

Legal Disclaimer: This Privacy Policy is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Your specific compliance obligations under laws such as the CCPA, Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), TCPA, CAN-SPAM, GDPR, or others depend on your individual circumstances. You should consult qualified legal counsel for advice tailored to your specific compliance needs before relying on any portion of this document as a legal opinion.

2. Categories of Personal Information We Collect

The personal information we collect falls into the following categories. Not every category applies to every individual; the information we actually hold about you depends on how you interact with us.

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Contact Information: full name, residential or service address, email address, and one or more phone numbers, collected through our online estimate forms, contact forms, scheduling forms, and during inbound or outbound telephone calls.
• Service Details: the make, model, age, and condition of HVAC equipment, chimney systems, fireplaces, dryer vents, or other systems on which we are asked to provide service; photographs you submit; the nature of the issue you describe; and your preferred service window.
• Payment Information: the last four digits of payment cards, billing addresses, and tokenized references issued by our payment processors. We do not retain full primary account numbers on our own servers.
• Communications: the contents of emails, text messages, web-chat conversations, voicemails, and survey responses you send to us.
• Identification Documents (limited cases): in the rare instances where we are required to verify identity for warranty claims, manufacturer rebates, or fraud investigation, we may collect a copy of a government-issued photo identifier; we retain such documents only as long as required by the underlying obligation and we treat them as sensitive personal information.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device and Browser Data: IP address, user-agent string, browser type and version, operating system, screen resolution, language settings, and approximate location derived from IP geolocation.
• Usage Data: the pages and posts you view, the buttons you click, scroll depth, the time you spend on each page, the search terms you enter on our internal search, and the referring URL that brought you to our site.
• Cookie and Pixel Data: first-party and third-party cookies, web beacons, conversion pixels, and similar tracking technologies used for site functionality, analytics, advertising attribution, and remarketing. A more detailed description appears in Section 7.
• Call Records: incoming and outgoing telephone numbers, call duration, call timestamps, and, where lawful and disclosed at the start of the call, audio recordings used for training, quality assurance, and dispute resolution.

2.3 Information from Third Parties

• Lead Generation Partners: when you submit a request through Google Local Services, Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Yelp, or a comparable referral platform, those platforms transmit the contact details you provided to them to us.
• Public Records and Property Data: for service planning we may consult publicly available property records, including parcel data, year built, and property tax records, to anticipate the equipment likely installed at your address.
• Manufacturer and Warranty Databases: when you request warranty service, we may receive equipment registration and warranty status information from manufacturers.

3. How We Use Personal Information

We use the personal information we collect for the following business and commercial purposes:

• To respond to your inquiries, schedule estimates, dispatch technicians, and perform the services you request.
• To prepare written estimates and proposals, generate invoices, and process payment.
• To send appointment confirmations, technician-on-the-way alerts, follow-up satisfaction surveys, and warranty registration emails.
• To communicate service reminders, seasonal maintenance recommendations, and limited-time promotional offers via email, SMS, postal mail, or telephone where you have given us the appropriate consent.
• To improve our website, refine our marketing, measure advertising effectiveness, and develop new service offerings.
• To detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, security incidents, malicious or illegal activity, and to enforce our Terms of Service.
• To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, including tax reporting, lien filings, workers’ compensation reporting, and responses to lawful subpoenas, warrants, or court orders.
• To defend, establish, or exercise legal claims, including in connection with insurance disputes, warranty claims, mechanic’s liens, and customer disputes.

4. TCPA Notice and SMS Consent Disclosure

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227, restricts certain types of automated calls and text messages. Texas Chimney Experts is committed to operating its outreach programs in full compliance with the TCPA, the implementing regulations of the Federal Communications Commission, and the consent and revocation framework reaffirmed by recent FCC orders on revocation, lead generators, and one-to-one consent.

4.1 What Consent Means

When you provide your telephone number through one of our web forms, by speaking to a representative, or by texting a keyword to a number we publish, and you affirmatively check or otherwise agree to a consent statement that authorizes us to contact you, you are providing prior express written consent to receive calls and text messages, including those that may use an automatic telephone dialing system or a prerecorded or artificial voice, at the number you provided. Consent is not a condition of purchase: you can still hire Texas Chimney Experts for service without agreeing to receive marketing messages.

4.2 Message Frequency, Rates, and Content

Message frequency varies. You may receive up to ten messages per month, typically including appointment confirmations, technician arrival notices, post-service satisfaction prompts, and seasonal maintenance reminders. Message and data rates may apply from your wireless carrier. We do not charge for sending messages.

4.3 Opting Out

You may revoke SMS consent at any time by replying STOP, CANCEL, END, QUIT, or UNSUBSCRIBE to any message we send. We will process your opt-out request promptly and will not send you further marketing text messages from the program you opted out of. You may receive a final confirmation message acknowledging the opt-out. To revoke consent to telephone calls, you may state your request orally during any call or you may email service@texaschimneyexperts.com with the subject line “Do Not Call.” Honoring an opt-out request does not erase your account; transactional messages confirming an active service appointment may continue until the appointment is completed.

4.4 HELP

For program help, reply HELP to any text message or contact us at ☎ (214) 555-0200. We will respond with program details and instructions for opting out.

5. Cookies, Pixels, and Online Tracking

Our website uses several categories of cookies and similar technologies:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies support core functions such as session continuity, form submission, fraud prevention, and load balancing; they cannot be disabled without breaking the site.
• Functional Cookies remember preferences such as your ZIP code, your selected service category, or your language.
• Analytics Cookies, including Google Analytics 4 and comparable tools, measure page views, conversions, and user paths in aggregate.
• Advertising and Remarketing Cookies, including Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Meta Pixel, and similar pixels, allow us to measure ad performance and to display ads to people who have previously visited our site on other websites and applications.

Most browsers allow you to refuse new cookies, delete existing cookies, or be alerted before a cookie is stored. If you opt out of analytics or advertising cookies, basic site functionality will still work but personalization may be reduced.

6. Third Parties with Whom We Share Personal Information

We share personal information only with categories of recipients that have a legitimate need for it, and only under written agreements that require them to handle it consistently with this policy:

• Service Providers: our customer relationship management (“CRM”) platform, scheduling and dispatch software, payment processors, telephone-system provider, SMS aggregator, email delivery vendor, web hosting provider, web analytics provider, accounting platform, and call-tracking service.
• Advertising Partners: Google, Meta, Microsoft, and similar platforms receive aggregated and pseudonymous conversion data so that we can measure campaign effectiveness. Where required by law, we make such transfers under written addenda that limit downstream use.
• Manufacturers and Distributors: when fulfilling warranty obligations, registering equipment, or arranging factory-authorized parts, we share customer name, address, equipment serial number, and service history with the equipment manufacturer or its authorized distributor.
• Professional Advisors: attorneys, accountants, auditors, and insurance carriers, under professional confidentiality obligations.
• Government and Law Enforcement: when lawfully compelled by subpoena, warrant, court order, or comparable process; when required by tax, employment, or licensing law; or, in our reasonable judgment, when necessary to protect the safety of an individual or the public.
• Successors in Interest: in the event of a sale, merger, reorganization, financing, or asset transfer, personal information may be transferred to a successor or potential acquirer subject to commercially reasonable confidentiality protections and to the continued application of this policy unless and until you receive notice of a change.

We do not sell personal information in exchange for money. To the extent that our use of advertising pixels and similar technologies could be characterized as a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, or under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (“TDPSA”), we honor opt-out requests as described in Section 8.

7. Data Retention

We retain personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to comply with legal obligations (including statutes of limitation, tax retention rules, and licensing requirements), to resolve disputes, and to enforce agreements. Generally:

• Customer service records and invoices are retained for at least seven years to satisfy tax, warranty, and statute-of-limitation requirements.
• Marketing-list contact information is retained until you unsubscribe or until two years of inactivity, whichever is shorter.
• Call recordings, when made, are retained for up to twenty-four months for quality assurance and dispute resolution unless a longer retention is required to investigate a complaint or comply with a legal hold.
• Analytics and advertising identifiers are retained according to the default retention windows of the platform that issued them, which we configure in line with current best practice.

8. Your Rights and Choices

8.1 Rights of California Residents (CCPA / CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to (i) know what personal information we have collected, used, disclosed, and sold or shared about you; (ii) request deletion of personal information we have collected; (iii) request correction of inaccurate personal information; (iv) limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information; (v) opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising; and (vi) be free from retaliation for exercising these rights. We will verify your identity before fulfilling a rights request and we will respond within forty-five days, with one possible forty-five-day extension when reasonably necessary.

8.2 Rights of Texas Residents (TDPSA)

The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, in effect since July 1, 2024, grants Texas residents the rights to (i) confirm whether we are processing their personal data and access that data; (ii) correct inaccuracies; (iii) delete personal data provided by or obtained about them; (iv) obtain a portable copy of personal data in a readily usable format; and (v) opt out of (a) the sale of personal data, (b) targeted advertising, and (c) profiling in furtherance of a decision producing legal or similarly significant effects. To exercise these rights, contact us using the channels in Section 10. We will respond within forty-five days. You also have the right to appeal a denial of a rights request; the appeal procedure will be communicated to you in our response.

8.3 European Visitors (GDPR Note)

Texas Chimney Experts markets to and serves customers located in Texas and the surrounding United States. We do not intentionally market to residents of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom. If you nonetheless visit our website from the EEA or the UK, the lawful bases on which we process the limited personal information you provide are (a) the performance of a contract or pre-contractual steps you have requested, (b) compliance with legal obligations, and (c) our legitimate interest in operating and securing the website. You may exercise the GDPR rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection by contacting us as described in Section 10. We will respond within one month.

8.4 General Choices

• Email: you may unsubscribe from our marketing emails using the link at the bottom of any message.
• SMS: see Section 4.
• Telephone: you may ask any representative to add you to our internal do-not-call list.
• Postal Mail: you may write to the address in Section 10 asking to be removed from postal mailings.

9. Information Security

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These safeguards include access controls, encryption of data in transit, vendor-risk reviews, employee training, and incident-response procedures. No method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is one hundred percent secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. How to Contact Us

To exercise any privacy right described in this policy, ask a question, request a copy of records, or report a concern:

By Email: service@texaschimneyexperts.com
By Phone: (214) 555-0200
By Web: https://texaschimneyexperts.com/contact/

Please include enough information to allow us to verify that the request comes from you (or an authorized agent acting on your behalf), and please describe the nature of the request with reasonable specificity.

11. Children’s Privacy

Our website is not directed to children under thirteen, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under thirteen. If you are a parent or guardian and believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can delete the information.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes we will update the “Effective Date” at the top of this page and, where appropriate, provide additional notice (for example, by email or by a banner on the homepage). Continued use of our website or services after the Effective Date constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Final Reminder About Legal Counsel

This Privacy Policy reflects our practices as of the Effective Date above. It is not a substitute for legal advice. If you operate a business, you should consult qualified privacy counsel for your specific compliance needs.