Family-owned chimney repair serving Crescent Park

Tracing water from the top of the chimney down

Water runs downhill, so a leak investigation starts at the top and works down. BIA guidance on chimney construction shows how much of the design is about the top, from the cap and its drip to the flue liner and the flashing at the roof, and a failure high up can show as a stain well below it.

Order matters because water entering near the top can run down the faces and through the masonry before it appears. New flashing fitted under a cracked crown can leave the leak running, and the flashing takes the blame.

When several entry points fail at once, the highest one goes first. Chimneys in Crescent Park get the same top-down check, and each entry point is priced on its own line so the order of the work is clear.

• The crown and any cap or screen above it
• The top of each flue liner and its joint with the crown
• Brick faces and mortar joints on every side
• Flashing where the chimney meets the roof, or siding on a framed chase

Cracks near the base of an outside chimney

An outside chimney is heavy, and it sits on its own footing of concrete or solid masonry, as the Florida Building Code requires. BIA guidance on chimney construction says soil conditions and type should be accounted for when that foundation is designed.

When the support below moves, the chimney above it shows the signs. BIA maintenance guidance treats the signs listed here as structural, and it puts structural issues outside the scope of ordinary maintenance.

Our crew notes what the base shows and where the cracks run. For homeowners in Crescent Park, the estimate says plainly when the next step is an engineer's evaluation rather than a mortar patch, and it holds back any masonry repair that depends on the answer.

• Cracks that run through several bricks near the ground
• Stepped or diagonal cracks in the lower courses
• Masonry at the base that bulges or has moved out of plane

Open mortar joints between flue tiles

A clay flue is only as tight as the joints between its sections. The Florida Building Code specifies medium-duty, water-insoluble refractory mortar with tight joints left smooth on the inside, and only enough mortar to make each joint and hold the liners in position.

Joints can erode, crack or drop out, leaving a gap between two sound tiles. Heat and flue gases then reach the chimney walls behind the liner, and water running down the flue finds another way into the masonry. Mortar left lumpy on the inside face works against the smooth surface the code asks for.

How the repair goes depends on how many joints are open, how high they sit and whether the tiles around them are sound. Scattered gaps in a good liner and a flue with failing joints along its length lead to different jobs. Each flue is written up with the joint condition found and the repair chosen for it.

After a chimney fire, keep the chimney out of use

Creosote is a black or brown combustible residue that forms when smoke condenses on the cooler walls of a flue. DuraVent's chimney instructions describe ignited creosote as an extremely hot fire, and they say not to use the chimney again until it has been inspected for possible damage.

If a fire is burning in the chimney now, get everyone out of the house and call 911. Nothing about the flue matters until the fire department says the house is safe.

Once it is out, the flue stays unused until that inspection is done. It looks for cracked or displaced flue tiles, open joints, damage to the smoke chamber and damper, heat damage at the top and anything scorched where the chimney meets framing. Our chimney inspection service handles that work, and each repair it finds is priced on a written estimate.