Chimney and Flashing Repair for Daniel, Utah

The chimney as an obstacle to a moving snowpack

Snow on a steep roof does not stay where it lands. It creeps downslope, slowly and with a great deal of force behind it, and anything projecting through the roof plane has to resist that. A chimney takes that load on its uphill face all winter, every winter. On a tall stack the leverage is considerable.

What we see as a result is damage that is concentrated rather than general: cracked or displaced mortar joints on the uphill side, flashing torn loose or folded over, and in bad cases a stack that is visibly out of plumb. A cricket, which is the small ridged structure built behind a chimney to split the snow and water and send it around either side, is the correct answer and is frequently missing or undersized on houses where it should be there.

Ice at the flashing

The second recurring problem is meltwater. Snow melts against a warm roof, runs downslope, and refreezes where the roof is cold, and a chimney is a place that geometry naturally collects. Water backing up behind an ice dam does not respect the direction flashing was designed to shed, and gets underneath it. The leak shows up inside as a stain at the ceiling near the chimney and gets blamed on the masonry when the failure is at the junction.

Crowns, joints and rebuilds

A winter in Daniel is long and it swings hard, from sun on the masonry in the afternoon to single digits overnight, and it is that daily thaw-and-refreeze rather than any one cold snap that opens joints and splits crowns. Above the roof the usual work applies: raking and repointing joints that have opened, recasting a crown that has cracked, and taking down and relaying the top courses where the brick or stone faces have spalled past the point of repair. Where flue tiles have cracked, a stainless liner is generally the better answer than rebuilding in masonry, and it can go in when mortar work cannot.

Access, safety and scheduling

We are straightforward about this one. A steep roof at this elevation is a hazard in winter and we will not work one that is not safe, because someone falling off your house is worse than a chimney repaired in April. Masonry also needs to cure above freezing. That means most structural work here is a late-spring-to-early-fall job, and if you call us in November we will tell you honestly whether it can be done properly now or whether a temporary weather cover and a spring date is the better plan. Licensed and insured.