Chimney repair in San Angelo TX - sound mortar and a roof seam that stays dry

Most people call after a stain shows up on the ceiling or wall by the fireplace, or after they spot sandy bits of mortar on the roof. The bricks on a chimney can last well over 100 years, but the mortar joints typically last a little more than 25, so the mortar is usually what gives out first. What moves the price is how much is failing and where. A few soft joints and a loose strip of flashing cost far less than repointing the whole chimney or replacing brick, and a tall chimney on a steep roof takes more setup. The schedule mostly turns on the weather, since fresh mortar wants dry days, and on whether the job needs a city permit. The estimate visit is where you get the figure for your chimney.

We check the mortar, the crown and the seam where the chimney meets the roof together, because fresh joints won't help if the flashing still lets water in, and I'll show you which part is failing before we start. Where the joints are worn, we clean out the old mortar to solid material and pack in new. Brick industry guidance says the new mortar should be about as strong as the original or weaker, because a harder mix can damage the brick for good, so ask us which mortar we're using and why. At the roof, the same guidance calls for base and counter flashing, one metal piece lying on the roof and a second tucked into the brick and lapped over it, so that seam gets as much attention as the brick does. Up top, the crown, the sloped cap around the flue, is easy to overlook, and water that gets past it ends up between the chimney wall and the flue liner, so we seal it before we call the job done.

If the joints on your house walls look as tired as the ones on the chimney, that's tuckpointing, the same mortar work carried across a whole wall. Bricks that have cracked through or started shedding their faces get cut out and replaced as brick repair, and we usually take care of those on the same visit when the chimney has a few.

The city's permit rules cover residential renovations without naming chimney work, so whether your repair needs a permit is a question for San Angelo's Building Permits & Inspections office. When a job does need one, we handle the paperwork with that office and plan our work around the inspections. The city's residential forms also include a Contractor Registration form next to the permit application, and it's fair to ask whether your contractor has filed it.

The city's code rates weathering here as moderate, so a chimney in San Angelo isn't beaten up the way one farther north is, but sun, rain and the occasional freeze still work at the joints year after year. Most of what we see is older brick where the mortar has quietly worn back while the bricks still look fine, and we find the same on jobs across San Angelo and the cities around it.