Chimney repair for homes in East Park

Keeping the house safe until the repair

Some damage should change how you use the house before any repair starts. If the damage is in the flue, the firebox or the chamber above the damper, leave the fireplace unused until it has been repaired. Those are the parts that contain the fire and carry its smoke out of the house, so a fault there is not one to test with a fire.

Water coming in beside the chimney is the other reason to adjust. Move furniture, rugs and stored boxes away from a damp wall or attic spot, and catch drips before they soak further into a ceiling. Anything loose high on the chimney means keeping people clear of the ground below it.

Do not climb up to push bricks back, pull loose pieces down or smear sealant over a crack. At the free inspection, a flue that should stay cold and anything that could fall are the first items written up for your East Park home, ahead of anything cosmetic.

• Leave a damaged fireplace cold
• Move belongings away from a damp wall
• Stay off the roof and the ladder

White deposits on the brick

A white, powdery film on chimney brick is likely efflorescence. BIA guidance explains that it needs three conditions at the same time, and it forms when water carrying dissolved salts reaches the surface and evaporates, leaving the salts behind.

Those salts show on the brick but usually come from what touches it, such as mortar, concrete or soil. That makes efflorescence a water sign more than a brick defect, and BIA notes it is usually not harmful to the brick itself.

Cleaning comes last. BIA guidance says to identify and correct the source of water and let the brickwork dry before cleaning recurring efflorescence, and light deposits can be removed by dry brushing or with a stiff fiber brush and water. On the estimate, the water repair comes first and any cleaning follows it.

• Soluble salts in or touching the brickwork
• Water in contact with them long enough to dissolve them
• A path through the masonry to a surface where water can evaporate

Antennas, dishes and lights mounted on a chimney

A chimney looks like a handy post for a satellite dish, an old antenna, a flag bracket or a string of lights. The Florida Building Code lets a chimney carry nothing but its own weight unless it was designed and built for the added load. A chimney built to carry itself has no allowance for a mast pulling on it.

The damage tends to start at the anchors. Bolts and straps drilled into brick or mortar open holes for water, and a mast that moves works those holes larger. Straps wrapped around the stack can crack corners and hold water against the face.

The repair is taking the mount down, patching or replacing the drilled masonry and putting the equipment somewhere built to hold it. Our technicians remove what is on the chimney and the estimate prices the masonry repair. Mounting the dish somewhere else is a job for its installer.

What a finished repair should show you

When the job is done, you get a written record of the work we did, and you should be able to understand it without climbing onto the roof. Each line on it names a part and a repair, and each one should match something you can see or have explained to you.

Some results take time to show, like mortar color that evens out as it dries. When the job calls for it, a leak repair is checked with a water test from a hose.

Keep the record with the house paperwork and look at the repaired area from the ground now and then. If a line does not match what you see, ask us about it. Depending on the job, results like these should be easy to confirm.

• New or rebuilt masonry visible from the yard or a window
• Counterflashing set into the joints, not glued to the face
• A damper or cleanout door that opens and closes by hand
• A clear answer on when the fireplace can be used again