Masonry and Metal: Chimney Repair in Bluffdale

If your chimney is a framed chase

Most of the newer subdivisions have a wood-framed box finished in siding or stucco, with a metal flue running up the middle and a sheet-metal cover on top. There is no brickwork to fail, so repair here is sheet metal and sealant work. The failure is almost always the chase cover. Builders fit a flat galvanized lid, water sits in the middle of it instead of running off, and after fifteen or twenty Utah winters the standing water rusts a hole straight through. From there it drips down the outside of the flue pipe, soaks the framing and the insulation, and turns up as a stain on a bedroom ceiling long before anyone thinks to look at the roof. The fix is a stainless cover with a cross-break so water sheds and a proper drip edge at the perimeter. It is not an expensive repair. It is an expensive one to keep ignoring.

The other regular item is the step flashing where the chase meets the roof plane. Sealant-only flashing is a five-year fix at best in this climate. It wants metal.

If your chimney is brick

On the older acreage lots and the original town parcels you get site-built masonry, which is a different conversation. The damage mechanism is freeze-thaw. Brick and mortar hold water, water expands as it freezes, and at the top of a chimney there is no roof overhang to shelter anything. The sun hits one face while the other stays shaded and frozen, so that cycle runs dozens of times across a single winter. The crown cracks first because it is the thinnest concrete on the house. Water gets in behind it, works down into the joints, and starts pushing the brick faces off in sheets.

Repointing is the answer while the brick is still sound. The critical detail is that the new mortar must be softer than the brick, which matters far more than the color match. Modern high-cement mortar is harder than old brick, so under freeze-thaw the brick spalls instead of the joint, and you end up rebuilding the thing you were trying to save.

Knowing when it is a rebuild

There is a point where patching stops being honest. If the top several courses have lost their faces, if the crown is gone rather than cracked, or if the stack has taken a visible lean, then the top section comes down and goes back up. We will show you the photographs and tell you which of those you are looking at. A tuckpointing quote on a chimney that needs a rebuild is a cheap way to spend your money twice.