Chimney, Fireplace and Masonry Work in Midway, Utah

The old village

Walls and stacks in the original part of town are soft, porous local stone set in lime mortar, and that combination is easy to damage with good intentions. A hard modern mortar is stronger than the stone beside it, so under freeze and thaw the stone is what gives way. The joints stay crisp while the face of the rock spalls off behind them, and the bill for that arrives years after the repointing was paid for. Work on these has to be matched to what is already in the wall. Anyone who quotes a stack repair without asking what the existing mortar is has told you something useful about the quote.

The flues inside those older buildings are often narrow, were sized for stoves, and were reworked when the heating changed. On those, a camera pass tells you far more than a brush ever will, and we would rather show you the middle of the flue than describe it.

The newer side of town

Up on the slopes and out toward the resort ground the construction is recent, the main rooms are large and vaulted, and the hearths are factory-built units venting through framed chases faced in stone. They sweep quickly and cleanly. What takes the time is the chase top, the clearance where the pipe passes through framing, and the simple question of whether a house with three or four gas appliances has had all of them serviced or only the one in the living room. The one nobody uses is usually the one hiding something.

Nightly rentals belong to this half of town as well. A fireplace operated by a guest who has never seen it before carries a different risk than one lit by its owner, and a dated report with photographs is the only thing that records the condition on the day somebody looked.