About Portland Fireplace & Chimney
Portland Fireplace and Chimney is a full-service contractor specializing in the repair, inspection, and design of fireplaces and chimneys. The company is dedicated to ensuring the safety of families by providing comprehensive education on the prevention of fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. They offer a range of services including chimney repair, fireplace and chimney inspection, chimney caps, fireplace remodel and design, chimney rebuild and full construction, masonry restoration, and installation of wood stoves and inserts, as well as gas fireplaces and inserts. The company emphasizes the importance of regular maintenance and inspections to prevent fires and operating malfunctions.
The company takes a holistic approach to their services, aiming to solve problems in a way that prevents future repair needs. After restoring a system, customers can opt to be added to an annual maintenance list to schedule their maintenance and inspection in advance. This ensures that the systems are always performing optimally, guaranteeing the safety of the family. Portland Fireplace and Chimney also offers a variety of fireplace conversions, including wood fireplace conversions, high-efficiency wood fireplace systems, gas fireplace conversions, pellet fireplace conversions, bio flame ETHANOL conversions, and electric fireplace conversions. The company is committed to meeting the diverse needs of its customers, making it a one-stop-shop for anything related to fireplaces, chimneys, and vents.
Website Description
Phoenix Retheme Case Study
Phoenix Retheme is our proprietary solution for revitalizing a client’s WordPress website through the implementation of a custom-built, streamlined theme. This theme is meticulously crafted from the ground up, incorporating only the most essential elements of JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and HTML. This minimalist approach ensures the utmost efficiency in website operation, eliminating any superfluous code that could potentially hinder performance.
Background: The Portland Fireplace and Chimney website was initially built on a pre-built, over-the-counter WordPress theme. While visually appealing, the theme was not optimized for speed and efficiency, resulting in suboptimal performance metrics.
Objective: The goal was to maintain the original design aesthetics while significantly improving the website’s load speed, reducing the page size, and improving the GTMetrix grade, performance score, structure score, and LCP.
Strategy & Execution: The website was rethemed using our proprietary Phoenix Retheme system. The main changes included:
- Code Optimization: The website was re-coded to include only the essential JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and HTML. This eliminated any superfluous code that could potentially hinder performance.
- Page Size Reduction: The page size was significantly reduced from 3.99MB to 1.32MB. This was achieved without compromising the quality or complexity of the visual elements.
- Load Speed Improvement: The time before the site became interactive was reduced from 11.7 seconds to just 3 seconds. This was a result of efficient coding practices and optimization techniques.
- GTMetrix Grade Improvement: The GTMetrix grade improved from an E to an A.
- GTMetrix Performance Score Improvement: The GTMetrix Performance Score improved from 46% to 100%.
- GTMetrix Structure Score Improvement: The GTMetrix Structure Score improved from 69% to 90%.
- Largest Contentful Paint Improvement: The LCP went from 7.7s to 393ms.
- Google PageSpeed Insights Improvement: The Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO scores all improved on both Mobile and Desktop versions.
- Content Enhancement: The amount of content on the home page was tripled to better communicate the company’s goals and convert visitors into customers.
Before and After
Phoenix Retheme
Website Performance Improvements:
2x Home Page Content
1/3 Website File Size
Initial Load 20x Faster!
Website Improvement Details:
| Metric | Old Website | New Website |
|---|---|---|
| Website Content Updates | ||
| Word Count | 1677 | 3256 |
| GTMetrix | ||
| Grade | E | A |
| Performance | 46% | 100% |
| Structure | 69% | 90% |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 7.7s | 393ms |
| Fully Load Time | 11.7s | 3s |
| Total Page Size | 3.99MB | 1.32MB |
| Total Page Requests | 131 | 45 |
| Google PageSpeed Insights – Mobile | ||
| Performance | 23 | 99 |
| Accessibility | 93 | 95 |
| Best Practices | 83 | 91 |
| SEO | 85 | 93 |
| Google PageSpeed Insights – Desktop | ||
| Performance | 39 | 96 |
| Accessibility | 83 | 98 |
| Best Practices | 92 | 100 |
| SEO | 82 | 92 |
Outcome: The Phoenix Retheme resulted in significant improvements across all metrics, with the new website offering a smoother, more responsive user experience, better optimization for search engines, and improved GTMetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights scores. The enhanced content on the home page also better communicates the company’s goals and helps convert visitors into customers.
