Chimney repair and diagnosis in Orwin Manor

Spot repair or rebuilding a section

The size of a repair follows the condition of the masonry around the damage, not only the damage itself. A few spalled bricks or eroded joints in a wall that is otherwise tight and plumb can be repaired in place, brick by brick and joint by joint.

It changes when masonry has shifted or sits out of line, or when cracks run through several units. BIA maintenance guidance treats that kind of movement as structural, so the cause is found first. Setting new brick into masonry that is still moving only buys time, and the sound approach is then to take the chimney down to a solid course and rebuild from there, anchored and supported the way the Florida Building Code requires.

Before choosing, our technicians check the masonry around every damaged area. Your Orwin Manor estimate shows which approach we recommend, how far down a rebuild would go if one is needed and why a smaller repair would not hold.

Flashing metal that lasts

Flashing lives in the wettest spot on the roof. BIA guidance notes that corrosion-resistant sheet metal flashing is required by most building codes, and the Florida Building Code requires metal flashing at wall and roof intersections and around roof openings to be corrosion resistant, with a minimum thickness for each kind of metal.

BIA also says quality flashing materials should be specified because replacement may be expensive and troublesome. Replacing it means cutting out the joints that hold the counterflashing and working the roofing back around the chimney, so a thin or poor metal that fails early can cost far more than it saved.

Our crew uses corrosion-resistant metal at or above the code's minimum thickness. The metal is named on the estimate, so you know what is going into the one part of the chimney nobody wants to open twice.

Matching brick color, size and texture

A repair that stops water can still look wrong if the new brick stands out. BIA maintenance guidance says replacement brick must match the existing brick in its looks and in its physical properties, and it admits that locating a match may take considerable effort.

The guidance recommends judging the match with a mock-up or sample panel that shows the full range of colors and textures in the chosen brick, laid to match the existing brickwork. Seen that way, the whole range of the new brick is judged, not one well-chosen sample.

An honest match is close, not identical, and new brick will not share the weathering of the rest of the chimney at first. The estimate for homes in Orwin Manor names the brick we propose and says how close a match to expect.

• Color, judged across the whole range of the wall
• Size, so the new courses line up with the old
• Surface texture
• Physical properties that suit the existing brick

A chimney too short for the roof around it

The Florida Building Code sets a minimum height. A chimney must extend at least three feet above the highest point where it passes through the roof, and at least two feet higher than any part of the building within ten feet. Brick Industry Association guidance names chimney height and flue area as the two most critical factors in chimney design.

Chimneys come up short when the house changes around them. A second story, a raised roof, a dormer or an addition inside that distance can leave a chimney that met the rule when it was built now too low. Smoke that lingers at the opening or drifts back indoors can be one result.

The fix is extending the chimney to the height the code calls for, in masonry on a masonry chimney or in listed sections on a factory-built one, then finishing the new top. Our crew in Orwin Manor measures the chimney against the roof and any wall within that distance, and the estimate shows the added height and how it will be finished.