Honest chimney repair for Dr. Phillips homeowners

A cricket behind a wide chimney

A wide chimney on a sloped roof acts like a dam. Water and debris coming down the roof collect against its uphill side, and the flashing there has to hold back what piles up. A cricket, also called a saddle, is a small peaked section of roof built behind the chimney to split that flow and send it around.

The Florida Building Code requires a cricket where the chimney is wider than thirty inches along the ridge direction and does not meet the ridge. Where the cricket joins the chimney, it is flashed and counterflashed the same way as the rest of the roof and chimney joint.

A leak on the uphill side of a wide chimney with no cricket can trace to that missing detail. When a cricket is missing or its flashing has failed, the work goes through our chimney flashing repair service together with the roofing it touches. For homeowners in Dr. Phillips, the estimate says whether your chimney needs one.

Broken and spalled brick faces

Spalling is when the face of a brick breaks away and leaves a rough, recessed surface behind. BIA maintenance guidance notes that water gets through broken or badly spalled brick, and that the damaged units may have to be replaced.

Replacing a brick without finding out why it spalled only sets up the next one, so the joints, the top and the flashing around the damage are checked first. Our chimney brick replacement service handles the work, and on your Dr. Phillips home the estimate lists the bricks to be replaced along with the cause they point to.

• The damaged brick is broken out to make removal easier
• Mortar around the opening is cut away without harming the neighbors
• New brick and the opening are fully buttered and the brick pressed in
• Joints are pointed and tooled to match the original profile

Rust on a steel lintel or support angle

Some chimneys and fireplaces rely on steel to carry masonry. Over a fireplace opening, the Florida Building Code has the masonry supported by a noncombustible lintel with bearing at each end, and brickwork elsewhere can sit on steel shelf angles.

Rust on steel that carries brick is more than a stain. BIA maintenance guidance lists accumulated rust on lintels or shelf angles among the conditions it treats as structural, the kind that warrant a professional engineer's investigation.

Light surface rust and accumulated rust are not the same finding, and the difference is checked up close. At your Dr. Phillips home, a lintel with heavy rust is written on the estimate as a structural item with an engineer's evaluation recommended, not as a paint job.

• Rust building up in layers on the exposed steel
• Cracked mortar joints just above the steel
• Brick over the opening that has dropped out of line

Same-day visits when the schedule allows

Same-day service is available when the schedule allows. A sudden leak around the chimney, a damper stuck open or a piece of masonry that has come loose are the problems where an early look helps most, because each one can get worse while it waits.

The first visit is for finding the cause and writing the estimate. No repair work goes ahead until you have approved that estimate, even when the fix turns out to be small, and homeowners in Dr. Phillips see what the repair involves before anything starts.

When you get in touch, a clear description helps us plan the visit. These details cover most of it.

• What you see, where it is and when it started
• Whether it shows up only when it rains
• Whether the fireplace has been used since
• Roof access, gates and pets