Fireplace and Chimney Service in Springville, UT

The older blocks

Chimneys in the long-settled parts of this city have usually been altered more than once. A stack built for one appliance ends up serving another. A furnace flue gets tied into a space that was sized for a fireplace. Somewhere along the way an insert goes into an opening without a liner carried to the top. None of those changes are visible from the living room and all of them turn up in an inspection. The smoke chamber is where they turn up first, because it is the part nobody could see well enough to build carefully.

Mortar in these chimneys is soft by modern standards, which is not a defect. Soft mortar was always meant to be the sacrificial part, giving way before the brick does. The trouble starts once it has given up entirely, because water then travels through the joints into the brick itself. Repointing is the cheap version of a job that gets expensive if it waits.

Sitting at the foot of the range

Ground close to the mountains crosses freezing point more times in a winter than ground out in the middle of the valley. Afternoon sun warms one face of a chimney, meltwater soaks into it, and the temperature drops below freezing again after dark. Every one of those cycles expands the water held inside the masonry a little. The process is slow and completely relentless, and it explains why shaded faces of chimneys here spall and flake while the sunny faces still look presentable.

A cracked crown is the usual way water gets in to begin with. Sealing one costs a fraction of rebuilding the top courses of brick, and the only way to know which of those two you are facing is to put somebody on the roof with a camera and look.