Chimney repair in Big Lake, Becker & Monticello, MN

What our repair scopes keep naming

Across the 418 repair jobs and estimates we've written up with a full scope, the same few things come up again and again: the crown on 225 of them, the flue tiles or a liner on 223, brick above the roof on 208, and flashing on 103. A crown rebuild pours a new slab with an overhang and a drip edge. Repointing grinds out the failed joints and fills them with mortar that matches the brick. When the brick faces are gone, the top comes down to solid brick and goes back up right.

Out in the open

A lot of these chimneys stand with nothing around them to break the wind. Rain gets driven into an open joint, it freezes hard that night, and the joint gets a little bigger. Closing the joints and capping the top right is what stops it.

Big Lake

Big Lake's median house was built in 2000, and 86% of its homes are single-family detached. That's a lot of chimneys right around twenty to twenty-five years old, which is when a crown poured flush with the brick, or flashing that was only ever caulked, starts to show its age.

Becker and Monticello

Becker is more than two-thirds 1990 to 2009, but both Becker and Monticello also have a small older core. About one house in twenty in each went up before 1940, and those chimneys were laid with softer mortar that needs the same kind back. Monticello is also the most mixed of the three, with only about half its homes detached single-family, so there are chimneys on townhomes and twin homes as well as houses.

Two weather stations, nearly the same story

Big Lake and Monticello are closest to the NOAA station in Elk River, 8 and 10 miles off, which averaged 88 freeze-thaw days a winter over the last eight complete winters. Becker is closest to the station east of Santiago, about 13 miles out, which averaged 90 over ten. A freeze-thaw day is one where the high clears 32 and the low drops under it, so any water in the masonry freezes and thaws in the same day.

Earlier frost out west

At the Santiago station the first freeze usually comes around October 7, and the last one hangs on to about May 3. That's a few days earlier in the fall than the stations closer to the Cities. Both stations see about 29 or 30 nights a winter at zero or below.

Why a twenty-year-old crown is the one to watch

A lot of crowns on 90s and 2000s houses were finished flush with the edge of the brick, with no overhang and no drip edge. Water that runs off them runs straight down the face of the chimney and into the joints. Put that together with about 90 freeze-thaw days a year, and the top few courses are usually where the trouble starts.

Chimney inspection in Big Lake, Becker and Monticello

We go up on the roof and inside the flue with a camera. On brick, that means the crown, the joints above the roofline, the flashing and the clay tiles. On a factory-built fireplace in a framed chase, it's the cap, the storm collar, the flashing and the metal pipe. Every flue in the chimney gets looked at, and you get the pictures and a written report by email.

How often an inspection leads to a repair

Out of 773 inspections we've completed since 2022, 328 turned up work that needed a repair estimate. That's a little over four in ten. The rest didn't need one. Either way, you know where your chimney stands before winter instead of finding out from a stain on the ceiling.

What water does once it's in

Water that gets past the crown or the flashing runs down the inside of the chimney. It rusts the damper, soaks the brick from the inside, stains the ceiling next to the fireplace, and on a chase it gets into the framing. In our repair scopes, water getting in was written into 103 of 418. By the time it shows inside, it's usually been coming in for a while.

Chimney sweep in Big Lake, Becker and Monticello

The sweep is part of the inspection. We look first, with a camera, and if a flue has more than an eighth of an inch of buildup, it gets swept on the same visit. We don't sweep a flue we haven't inspected, because a sweep alone won't tell you about a cracked tile or a gap in the liner.

Fireplace or stove, once a year

Anything you burn wood in should be looked at once a year. A fireplace you light a handful of times still collects buildup, and birds and squirrels like an unused flue even more than a busy one.