Chimney Repair in Bridgewater, NJ

The crown is the concrete or mortar slab that covers the top of a masonry chimney around the flue, and its job is to shed water past the brick. Many older crowns were built flat and flush, with no overhang, so water runs down the face of the brick instead of dripping clear. Cracks in a crown let water straight into the core of the chimney. Repair runs from sealing hairline cracks to forming a new crown that slopes away from the flue and overhangs the brick.

A cap keeps rain, animals and debris out of the flue, and on a stack with several flues one cap can cover all of them, including the unused ones. Caps rust, blow loose in storms and get pushed aside by animals, and a missing cap lets rain fall straight onto the smoke shelf and the damper, where it rusts metal and soaks mortar. A replacement cap is sized to the flue or flues it covers and fastened so it stays put. An idle flue takes on as much rain as a working one, so it gets covered too.

Flashing seals the joint where the chimney passes through the roof. On older houses it may be layers of tar or aluminum that have pulled away from the brick, and on a reroofed house it is sometimes the original flashing reused under new shingles. When it fails, the leak tends to show as a ceiling stain beside the chimney that gets blamed on the roof. The crew resets or replaces it with counterflashing let into the mortar joints, so the seal can move with the roof.

Mortar joints on a stack that has seen many winters crumble from the top down. Repointing grinds out the loose mortar and packs fresh mortar into the joints, and spalled bricks, the ones whose faces have popped off, are replaced before water gets deeper. In North Plainfield, where the Washington Park district holds houses built from the late 1860s into the First World War years, the crew aims to match the existing brick and mortar color so the stack does not look patched.

On a factory-built fireplace, the chase cover is the sheet-metal top of the framed box around the metal chimney. Many are thin galvanized steel that rusts, sags in the middle and holds a puddle, and once it rusts through, rain runs down the chimney pipe into the framing and the firebox. A replacement cover in heavier or rust-resistant metal, shaped with a slope or a crossbreak so water runs off, stops that leak where it starts.

Inside, the flue liner keeps heat and exhaust away from the structure. Clay tile liners crack from chimney fires, settling and age, while metal liners corrode, especially where they carry the cool, wet exhaust of modern gas equipment. When a furnace or water heater is replaced, the flue it vents into may no longer suit it, and relining to match the new appliance is part of chimney repair. Most homes in these towns heat with natural gas, which makes the flue worth checking whenever the heating equipment changes.

Every repair starts with an inspection of the whole chimney, top to bottom, because water that shows up at the fireplace may be coming in at the crown, the cap, the flashing or the brick. The crew photographs what it finds on the roof, explains which parts are failing and which are sound, and lists each repair separately so you can see where the money goes. If rotted decking around the stack turns up, the estimate marks it as roofing work so it can be planned with a roofer.

Most chimneys can be put right one part at a time. Rebuilding a stack is the answer only when it is no longer safe, and if that is what the inspection shows, you hear it in those words. AMG, veteran owned and licensed and insured as NJ HIC 13VH13654300, answers the phone about repairs 8 AM to 8 PM, 7 days a week; there is no charge for the estimate. If the flue has not been swept lately, chimney cleaning usually comes first, since a liner can only be judged once it is clean.