Questions about your chimney? Call our receptionist, Kari, at 320.414.0191. She picks up weekdays, 9 to 5.
Walk out in the yard and look at your chimney from the roofline up, and if you look closely you may see the mortar joints washing out, a crown with no overhang or drip edge, and bricks spalling, which means the faces are popping off. Moss growing on the brick is the giveaway, because moss only grows where the brick stays wet.
Why it happens
Brick and mortar soak up water. In Minnesota that water freezes inside the brick every winter, expands, and breaks the face off a little more each year, while the mortar between the bricks washes out and leaves gaps for more water to get in. It nearly always begins with a crown that isn't shedding water away from the brickwork.
How we fix it
When the brick is sound and the joints are the problem, we grind out the bad mortar and tuckpoint new mortar into the joints. Bricks that have spalled come out and get replaced. If the damage runs deep, the chimney gets rebuilt from the point where the brick is solid again, and either way the top gets a proper crown so it doesn't happen again.
If any of this sounds like your chimney, call 320.414.0191. We'll come out, climb up, take pictures of what we find and show you before we quote anything.
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