Honest chimney repair for Lorna Doone homeowners

What you can check safely from the ground

You can learn a lot about a chimney without a ladder. Walk around the house, stand back far enough to see the whole stack and use binoculars for the top. BIA maintenance guidance recommends binoculars for observing upper areas up close, along with sketches and notes of what you see. It also suggests looking in different seasons, since some conditions only show in certain weather.

Stay off the roof. Nothing you could see from up there changes what happens next, and loose masonry and a pitched roof are a poor mix. Write down where you saw each thing and bring the notes to the free inspection, where our crew in Lorna Doone checks each point you raise up close.

• Mortar that is missing or sits back from the brick face
• Rust streaks running down from the top
• A gap where the chimney meets the house wall
• Plants, stains or white deposits on the brick

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 Lorna Doone, 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

Splitting a long repair list into phases

An inspection on a neglected chimney can turn up a long list. Doing everything at once is not always possible, and it is not always necessary. The list can usually be split into phases without leaving the house at risk.

Some items cannot be split. Counterflashing is set into mortar joints, so repointing and flashing on the same face go together, and a new crown goes on after any rebuild of the courses below it, not before. The estimate marks which lines depend on each other, so the phases you pick still work as a sequence. Within those limits, the order usually runs like this.

• Safety first, such as loose masonry or a damaged flue
• Water entry next, at the crown, cap, flashing and joints
• Working parts after that, like the damper and cleanout
• Finish work last, such as cleaning and color matching

A chimney that vents a furnace or water heater

Some masonry chimneys carry more than a fireplace. A furnace, boiler or water heater may vent into its own flue in the same chimney, through a connector that enters from the side in a utility room, closet or garage.

A masonry chimney's lining has to suit the appliance connected to it, and the Florida Building Code sends flue linings for gas appliances to its fuel gas chapter. It also says the space around a lining system installed inside a masonry chimney may not be used to vent any other appliance. A flue built for a fireplace is not automatically right for a water heater, and the reverse holds too.

The appliance itself belongs to the trade that services it. Our crew in Lorna Doone handles the chimney side, meaning the flue, its lining, the inlet at the masonry and the top, and the estimate says plainly which items are ours and which belong to that trade.