Chimney Repair and Rebuilding

Fackrell Masonry and Construction repairs and rebuilds brick and stone chimneys across southern Idaho, from crumbling caps and loose brick to full rebuilds above the roofline. Brad Fackrell is a third-generation mason, working from Nampa and Blackfoot.

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Finished brick chimney rebuild with a new concrete crown, painted flue extension and fresh flashing

Most of the chimney work I do traces back to one thing: the cap. A proper chimney cap would have made a lot of these chimneys last many years longer. Unfortunately, most chimneys are constructed with an inadequate cap. Once it cracks, water gets in at the top and runs down the face of the brick, and that is what takes the mortar joints and the brick with it.

A chimney is out of sight and out of mind until bricks start raining down from above. By the time somebody calls me, the top is usually worse than it looked from the ground. It is not unusual to find the top few courses lifting off with no effort at all, a single wind storm away from coming down. Flue liners weaken over time too, and need to be replaced. I have had one come apart as we removed the old cap.

Sometimes the fix is resetting the loose brick, repointing the joints, repairing the liner and building a new cap with a drip edge on it. Sometimes the stack is far enough gone that the honest answer is to take it down to the roofline and build it back. And once in a while the problem is not the chimney at all, and the right thing to do is say so instead of selling a repair that will not hold.

What this covers

New chimney caps built to shed water, with a drip edge that greatly cuts down what runs onto the face of the brick and buys the masonry years
Removing and resetting loose brick, and repointing washed-out mortar joints
Mortar matched as closely as the materials allow, working from a cured sample set my dad and I have built up over the years
Top section flue liner repair, or replacement where a clay liner in the right size can be sourced
Full rebuilds above the roofline, taken down to the roof and built back in brick or stone
Rebuilds detailed to suit the house, from stepped Colonial-style corbelled courses to engineered stone
Repairs an insurance company is requiring before it will write or renew a policy
Covering the roof around the chimney before demolition, so taking one down does not cost you shingles as well

How to tell you need this

Joints worn back from the face of the brick. A quarter of an inch of recession is the trade's standard threshold for repointing, because beyond that the joint no longer sheds water.
On tooled joints, the hard outer surface worn away. Tooling compacts that skin, and the skin is what sheds water. Once it is gone the softer mortar behind it erodes considerably faster. Raked joints have no such surface, so on those the measure is simply how deep the erosion runs.
Daylight through the joints at the top of a chimney. That one is urgent. At that stage brick is ready to start coming off.
A cap that is cracked, crumbling or broken up. The cap is what keeps water out of the top of the chimney, and most chimneys were built with an inadequate one to begin with. Once it goes, the mortar joints and brick below it are next.
Brick near the top you can move with your hand. Once the joints around it have washed out, there is not much holding it in place.
Brick or mortar crumbs on the roof and in the gutters. That material came off the top of the stack. It is not unusual to find the top few courses lifting off with no effort at all, one wind storm away from ending up in the yard.
A stucco or skim coat that is cracking and letting go. Stucco over loose and damaged brick and mortar is not really a repair. We could call it a bandaid, maybe. They always fail, and the brick underneath is usually worse than the coating suggests.

Questions people ask

Do you repair chimneys in Boise?

Yes. Fackrell Masonry and Construction covers all of Southern Idaho, between the Oregon and Wyoming borders. That reaches as far north as McCall, Stanley, New Meadows and Salmon. I work from Nampa in the Treasure Valley and Blackfoot in eastern Idaho. Work is Whether the job carries five years or one depends on what it is, and you will know before you sign. Start with the quote form at https://fmandc.com/intake/.

Does my chimney need a repair or a full rebuild?

It comes down to how much damage there is, and what the repair would cost against what a rebuild would cost. Mortar is the easy part. Joints wash out, joints get repointed, and on its own that rarely means a rebuild. Brick is what decides it. Once enough of the brick has gone, replacing it piece by piece costs more than taking the chimney down to the roofline and building it back. At that point the rebuild is the cheaper job as well as the better one. That call gets made after somebody has actually been up there and looked.

Why do chimneys fall apart in the first place?

Usually the cap. A proper chimney cap would make most chimneys last many years longer, but most are constructed with an inadequate cap. Once it cracks, water gets in and runs down the face of the brick, and the mortar joints and brick erode from there. A drip edge on the new cap throws that water clear of the brick instead of letting it run down the face.

Do you replace chimney flue liners?

Sometimes, and only the top section of each flue. When the cap comes off, the top section is the part that has taken the weather, and if it needs replacing I replace it. Clay liners I can usually source. The old pumice ones are not made anymore, so on a pumice flue the answer is almost always a repair. The sections below the top are built into the stack. Reaching them means taking the chimney apart, which is a rebuild rather than a repair. I will tell you that up front.

Can snow sliding off a metal roof knock a chimney down?

It can. Snow lets go off a metal roof all at once, and there is nothing gentle about it. I rebuilt a log cabin chimney where the top of the stack ended up lying out in the yard. Chimney, metal roof, snow, and no proper cricket above it. After we rebuilt it, a roofing contractor came back to finish the flashing and build a larger cricket so it would not happen again.