Service
What you get: masonry that sheds water instead of drinking it, a firebox that is safe to light, and a chimney that looks like it belongs on the house.
What we repair
01
When the mortar has gone and the brick is spalling, repointing only buys time. We take the stack down to sound masonry — usually from the roofline up — rebuild it, and form and pour a new concrete cap or crown so water stops getting in at the top.
02
Firebox reconstruction in refractory brick, smoke chamber restoration in high-temperature insulated cement, clearance-to-combustibles issues corrected, hearths raised, faces built out ready for a new surround and mantel.
03
Eroded joints cut out and repointed, spalled brick replaced, columns and façades rebuilt to match the existing house as closely as possible, flashing sealed, and the whole chimney waterproofed with ChimneySaver.
Chicago weather is the problem. Water soaks into the masonry, freezes, expands and pops the face off the brick; acidic flue gases eat the mortar joints from the inside; and once the joints erode, heat transfers faster to nearby woodwork and dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide can leak into the living space.
That is why most of our repair jobs also involve the flue. Rebuilding the top of a chimney and leaving a cracked, unlined or wrongly sized flue behind it fixes the view and not the danger. When we rebuild, we usually reline as well.
Chicago houses are not all two-story ranches. We set up full scaffold towers on church chimneys, work from high lifts to protect slate roofs, and open up walls when that is the only way to find where a previous contractor vented a furnace.
Access is planned before the job starts, so the price you are quoted is the price for doing it properly rather than the price for doing it from a ladder.
Recent repair work
Send a photo or describe what you can see. We will tell you whether it is a repair, a rebuild, or something that can wait a season.
