Chimney repair in Anoka & Ramsey, MN

Anoka: old brick needs the right mortar

The older houses around downtown and along the Rum River were built with soft lime mortar and softer brick. You can't fix them with the same mortar you'd use on a 1990s house. Modern mortar is harder than that old brick, so instead of the joint wearing, the brick face blows out. We match the strength, not just the color, and where the top is past saving we rebuild it with the original brick wherever it's sound enough to reuse.

Ramsey: newer houses, and what fails on them

Ramsey built out a lot later, so the common chimney is a framed chase with siding, a factory fireplace inside and a sheet metal cover on top. Those fail at the top: rusted covers, split storm collars, and flashing somebody tried to fix with a tube of tar. All of it gets replaced from the roof, and none of it means replacing the fireplace.

On a Ramsey chase: what a storm collar is

On a factory-built chimney, the round metal pipe comes up through the cover on top, and the storm collar is the ring clamped around that pipe where it passes through. It's supposed to throw water off the pipe and away from the hole. Once the sealant under it dries out or the collar slips, rain runs down the outside of the pipe and into the chase. It's a small part, and it's one of the first things we look at on a sided chimney that's leaking.

Anoka: more rentals, and older chimneys on them

Close to half the homes in Anoka are rented, so a lot of Anoka chimneys belong to a landlord and sit on a house somebody else lives in. If you own one of those, a tenant won't notice the crown or the joints until water shows up inside. An inspection every year gets you pictures of the whole thing without climbing up there yourself.

Ramsey: newer houses, owners who stay

Ramsey went the other way. 73% of its homes are single-family detached and 85% are lived in by their owners, and 41% went up between 1990 and 2009. A 1998 house in Ramsey has had more than twenty-five winters on its chimney, which is when the flashing, the cap and the liner are worth a real look.

Two weather stations, one kind of winter

Anoka's closest long-record NOAA station is Andover 1N, about five and a half miles away. It averaged 92 freeze-thaw days a winter over its eight complete winters from 2015 to 2023, with about 33 nights at zero or colder. Ramsey is closer to the Elk River station, about seven miles off, which averaged 88 freeze-thaw days and about 30 nights at zero or colder over its eight complete winters. Either way, that's close to three months' worth of days that thaw in the afternoon and freeze at night.

What that does to soft old brick

On the older Anoka chimneys, that freeze-thaw is hardest on soft brick that's been repointed with mortar harder than it is. The joint stops giving, so the brick face takes the push instead and pops off. On Ramsey's newer chimneys the same weather works on caulk, flashing and the metal at the top. Different chimney, same winter, and it's why we match the repair to the chimney and not the other way around.

Chimney inspection in Anoka and Ramsey

On an old Anoka chimney we look at what the joints were pointed with, whether the brick faces are sound, the crown, the flashing, and the clay flue tiles with a camera. On a newer Ramsey house we look at the cap, the flashing, the storm collar and chase on a factory-built chimney, and the liner the whole way down. Every flue that vents into the chimney gets checked, and you get the pictures and a written report by email.

What our inspections turn up

Flue tiles or relining came up in 223 of the 418 repair scopes we've written, about as often as the crown. Flashing came up in 103, and water getting in somewhere came up in 103 too. We've done 773 inspections since 2022, and those are company-wide numbers, not an Anoka or Ramsey count. On a house this old or a chimney this far into its life, the liner and the flashing are two of the first things we look at.

Chimney sweep in Anoka and Ramsey

The sweep comes with the inspection, in Anoka, Ramsey and everywhere else we work. We inspect every flue, and when a flue has more than an eighth of an inch of buildup, we sweep it that same visit. On an older chimney with clay tiles, the camera matters as much as the brush, because a cracked tile lets heat and creosote into the brick around it and a sweep alone will never show you that.