Chimney Brick Repair

Here is some before, during and after pictures of bricks repaired on a chimney.

chimney brick repair

Warning – Don’t delay getting the cracks in your chimney repaired

This is a picture of a Rampart General Pre-Cast chimney which had a significant portion of the chimney collapse after the heavy January rains.

These chimneys are made of concrete, even though they usually have a brick pattern.  Visit www.luckysully.com for more information on these chimneys.  There are tens of thousands of homes in Orange County with these chimneys.  If you see any vertical cracking, it is important to get the repairs done immediately as the cracks will only expand.  If the cracks are repaired quickly enough you can get many more years of use out of your fireplace.  If you wait you may have to demolish and rebuild the entire chimney and fireplace.  In this case, we could only recommend that the homeowner find someone to demolish the chimney and replace it.

Rampart General Pre-cast chimney

Chimney Cap Replacement

Here is a before and after of a Chimney Cap we replaced in Southern California.

Before

Before

Chimney Cap Replacement After

After

Custom made satin nickel finished fireplace glass doors

These 2 pictures are a set of custom made satin nickel finished for fireplace glass doors. Gives a very nice contemporary look to an old fireplace.

Custom Fireplace Glass Doors Custom Satin Nickel Glass Fireplace Doors

Chimney repair preparations

There are many preparations that go into doing chimney repairs. Scaffolding is set up to do repairs and stay off breakable roof tiles. Proper leg levelers are added and 2×4’s removed before doing any work.

Scaffolding-set-up-to-avoid-delicate-roof-tiles

Badly cracked up chimney bricks

These cracks are caused by rebar originally installed during construction to give strength to the chimney. Lack of maintenance, waterproofing, allowed moisture to penetrate to rebar and the expansion rusting rebar shatters chimney bricks. Extensive cracking due to lack of maintenance. Because chimney bricks are porous, water can soak through to rebar. Metal as it rusts, expands and blows up bricks. 

cracked chimney bricks

Chimney Brick Repair

Had to replace all these bricks. Sprinklers kept soaking bricks and got rebar wet. It rusted and destroyed the bricks. The black stains are from creosote/soot/smoke/ hot gases escaping flue and firebox, potentially getting into combustibles and house fire.

rusted and destroyed bricks

Repairing Your Chimney is Important in CA

In an area where earthquakes are not uncommon, it is important to repair your chimney as soon as cracks appear. An un-repaired, unstable chimney is much more likely to sustain unrepairable damage during even a minor earthquake.

Here is a rebuild of a chimney we did.

chimney rebuild

Masonry chimney fireplace issue repaired

The purpose of your chimney is to properly vent the products of combustion (smoke) form your home. However, if the integrity of a chimney is compromised, say from a crack, this can be an issue.

If smoke and combustion materials are not vented away from your home they can build up in said cracks, thus causing fire hazards.

Cracks are one of the most common masonry chimney issues!

Chimney masonry repairs

We can repair most problems with chimneys including relining the flue, replacing a damaged damper with a top damper, repairing cracks in the fireplace, replacing gas lines, rebuilding the chimney crown and fixing exterior cracks in chimneys.  It is important to get minor problems repaired before they become major expensive repairs.

Chimney Masonry Repair