Chimney Rebuilding

It’s an unfortunate fact but the reality is, bricks on chimneys do deteriorate and you don’t know it’s happening until it’s too late!

That’s right. Your chimney can look perfectly fine one year and then the next, you’ll see chipped or broken bricks (called spalling) or pieces of bricks laying on your roof or the ground below the chimney. This deterioration is caused by a damaged crown and is a sure sign that your chimney is in need of repair.

Do I have any options on fixing this problem?

Yes. There are two ways to attack this problem depending on your budget. The first and most durable and of course, the most expensive repair, is to remove the damaged brick chimney shell down 12″ – 18″ below the visible damaged area on the chimney and then rebuilding this area with new bricks.

After the chimney shell is rebuilt then a new chimney crown is put over the chimney brick and an application of Crown Seal is applied to prevent water from coming in through the top of the chimney. (see our page of Chimney Crowns for more info)

After the chimney work is completed then we apply a saturation coating of chimney sealer to the entire chimney shell. Even though the rebuild area is new you still have aging bricks below the repair area which are susceptible to water infiltration and must be sealed to protect their integrity. This is you best way to protect your chimney from further deterioration.

What other options can you offer on repairing chimneys that are spalling?

The second repair technique the ‘Fill & Stain’ technique is only recommended with certain types of bricks or with chimneys with minimal spalling or for budget repairs. It is less durable and unwarranted and under the best of circumstances will last quite a while.

With this approach we fill in the damaged bricks out to the existing masonry surfaces with a repair mortar. If we can we will sculpt the mortar to match the texture of the existing bricks.

Then we stain each repaired brick to blend in with the existing brick color range. Then as above we install CrownSeal over the chimney crown and seal the entire chimney shell with sealer to protect it from rain.

Chimney sealer application is the final touch. This product absorbs into the pores of the masonry and deposits slippery, angular particles.

These particles repel the round water molecules that try to penetrate keeping your chimney safe and dry. These chimney products and services are available from Handy Home Pro.