Stone chimney repair in Lake Shore Village

Cutting and placing replacement stones

Replacement stones often need trimming with nippers, a hatchet or a saw. One maker suggests coating cut or broken edges with mortar for the best appearance, turning cut edges up when above eye level and down when below, and placing a cut edge next to a thicker stone to hide it.

Those small choices decide whether a repair disappears into the wall. Our crew cuts outdoors with dust control and sets each piece with the cut where it will not catch the eye.

Cleaning manufactured stone the gentle way

Dirt on cast stone needs a light touch. The instructions we follow say it can be removed with granulated soap or detergent in water and a bristle brush, rinsed right away with fresh water. They rule out wire brushes, acid or acid-containing products, power washing and sandblasting.

Those methods can strip the colored surface of cast stone and leave marks that do not come out. We clean with the gentle method first and never reach for pressure or acid on manufactured stone.

• Detergent, water and a bristle brush
• Rinse right away with fresh water
• No wire brush, acid, pressure or blasting

Removing caulk and sealant from joints

Caulk pressed into stone joints is a common quick fix for a leak. It seals the joint face while water still moves behind it, it stains stone as it ages and it leaves a surface that new mortar will not bond to.

We cut caulk out completely, scrape the residue off the stone edges and rake the joint to sound mortar before repointing. If the caulk was hiding a leak, the leak goes into the findings with its source.

Resetting a loose stone

A loose stone comes out carefully, by hand, without prying against its neighbors. The old mortar is cleaned off the stone's back and the bed it came from, down to sound material.

Then the stone goes back with fresh mortar filling the whole bed, pressed in until mortar squeezes out around its edges, and the joints are tooled to match. Before any of that, we find out why it loosened, since a reset over the same water problem will not hold.

• Removed by hand, neighbors protected
• Old mortar cleaned off stone and bed
• Reset with full mortar coverage
• Joints tooled to the existing profile

Looking at the chimney from the attic

Where a chimney passes through an attic that can be entered safely, the inside of the chase or the chimney face there can show stains, damp framing or light where there should be none.

We look there when access allows, since it often explains what the outside only hints at. Nothing is disturbed, and anything we find is written into the findings with the part of the chimney it points to.