The brick and mortar of a chimney take the full force of the Philadelphia weather, and on the older North Philadelphia rowhomes that masonry is usually the first thing to go. Soft old brick spalls and sheds its face, the mortar joints wash out and open up, and the crown that should shed water off the top of the stack cracks and lets it in instead. FlueShield Chimney Sweep handles chimney masonry repair and tuckpointing across North Philadelphia, replacing failed brick, repointing open joints with matched mortar, and rebuilding crowns so the stack sheds water and stands sound again. It is the work that keeps an old chimney standing, and it is exactly the kind of masonry these neighborhoods are built on.
- Spalled and failed brick cut out and replaced to match
- Open mortar joints repointed with matched mortar
- Cracked crowns rebuilt to shed water off the stack
- Damaged brick courses near the cap and roofline rebuilt
- Party-wall and shared-stack masonry handled with care
- Matched materials and a written price before any cutting
Why North Philly brick stacks wear from the top down
A chimney is the most exposed masonry on the house, standing up above the roofline with weather hitting it from every side, and on the older North Philadelphia rowhomes that exposure tells over the years. The brick on a lot of these stacks is soft old brick that soaks up water, and when that water freezes it expands and pops the face off the brick, a process called spalling that you can see as flaking, crumbling faces and a pile of brick grit on the roof below. Once the brick face is gone, the joint behind it is open to the weather, and the mortar, which is older and softer still, washes out faster, leaving gaps that let even more water into the stack.
It tends to start at the top and work down, because the top of the stack takes the most weather and sits above the crown. A cracked or missing crown lets water sit on top of the masonry and run down inside it, which is why the worst spalling and the most open joints are so often in the top few courses and around the crown. On the attached rowhomes common across North Philadelphia, a failing stack is not only your problem either, since the masonry and the party wall are shared with the house next door, and water getting into a deteriorated shared stack can surface on both sides. Reading where the masonry is actually failing, and how far down it has gone, is the first job of an honest masonry repair.
Repointing, brick replacement, and rebuilding the crown
Our masonry work matches the repair to what the stack actually needs. Where the joints have washed out but the brick is still sound, we tuckpoint, raking out the old, failed mortar and repointing the joints with fresh mortar matched as closely as we can to the original in color and type, which both seals the stack against water and matches the look of the existing masonry. Where the brick itself has spalled and failed, we cut out the bad brick and replace it with brick matched to the chimney, then point it in, so the repair carries the load and sheds water like the rest of the stack rather than sitting as an obvious patch.
When the crown has cracked, which on these older stacks it very often has, we rebuild it, because the crown is what sheds water off the top of the chimney and a failed crown is usually behind the spalling and the open joints further down. A properly built crown overhangs the brick, slopes to shed water clear of the stack, and gives the whole chimney a fighting chance against the next winter. On the multi-flue and party-wall stacks common in North Philadelphia we take extra care, since the masonry is shared and the work has to keep each flue sound and the wall solid for both homes. Matched materials and careful work are what make the difference between a repair that lasts and one that fails again in a season.
Catching failing masonry before the stack comes apart
Chimney masonry fails slowly and then all at once, and the cost of waiting is steep. Spalled brick and open joints ignored through a few Philadelphia winters let water deep into the stack, where the freeze and thaw keeps prying it apart, the mortar between the flue tiles washes out, and the structure of the chimney itself begins to lean or shed brick onto the roof and the sidewalk below. What would have been a tuckpointing job and a crown repair turns into a partial or full rebuild, and on a tall rowhome stack a section of failing brick overhead is a genuine safety problem for the people on the ground. Handling the masonry while it is still pointing and patching is far cheaper than waiting for it to become a rebuild.
We give you the honest read either way. If the masonry just needs repointing and a crown repair, that is what we will quote, with the photos to show why. If the stack has gone too far for a patch and genuinely needs a rebuild, we will tell you that plainly as well, rather than taking your money for repairs that only delay the inevitable. Either way you get photos of the condition, a written price before any cutting starts, and a crew that cleans up the brick and mortar debris before it leaves, so a masonry repair on your North Philadelphia chimney is one you can see the value of and never have to wonder about.
Pulling your whole chimney project together
A chimney is a system, so masonry & tuckpointing rarely stands alone, it connects to chimney sweeping service, pre-season chimney inspection, chimney leak repair, chimney caps, flue relining, and our crew handles all of it under one roof. We bring the same service to Masonry & Tuckpointing in North Philadelphia, Masonry & Tuckpointing in Olney, Masonry & Tuckpointing in Logan, Hunting Park masonry & tuckpointing and everywhere else across the Philadelphia area.
If you searched for local chimney service, you have reached a local crew, call 215-645-7630 any time. For background, read From Coal to Gas: What Decades of Fuel Changes Did to Your North Philadelphia Chimney on our blog, or head back to our Philadelphia home page to see everything we do.