Masonry inspection

An estimate is free and it comes with a look at the work you asked about. Every contractor does that, and you don't need this page for it.

A paid inspection is a different product. It covers the whole structure instead of the one thing you called about. It arrives in writing, with photographs. And it's yours, to use however you like, including to collect bids from other people. You're buying the assessment, not a proposal.

That's one of the most common reasons people call. A general home inspector isn't a mason, so masonry usually comes back as a line telling you to go ask one. Meanwhile you've got a short window, a lender waiting and a price to negotiate.

You get a written assessment of the brick, stone and chimneys, what it's likely to take to put right, and cost ranges. Whether you use it to walk away, to negotiate, or just to stop worrying about it, it's a small line item next to what's being decided.

Because in most cases the home inspector is the one who told you to. That line, recommend evaluation by a masonry specialist, is the single most common reason people call about this.

A general home inspector is a generalist, and a good one knows exactly where his expertise stops. Masonry is one of those places. He can see that something looks wrong, and he isn't in a position to tell you what caused it, how far it runs, whether it's structural, or what putting it right involves. So he writes the line and moves on, correctly.

Those four things are the whole product here. What it is, what caused it, how bad it is, and what it takes to fix. With photographs, in writing, in a form you can hand to a lender, a seller, or three contractors on the same afternoon.

And if the inspector flagged nothing but you're still uneasy about the chimney, that's a reasonable call too. A chimney is the one part of a house nobody has ever gone and looked at.

Less than most people expect, and a small fraction of an engineer, which is usually the comparison that matters.

What moves it is the building and the drive. How far away it is, since I travel for these. How big and how complicated, because a single chimney and a three-story commercial envelope are not the same afternoon. And whether getting eyes on it takes a lift or a drone, which is often the difference between a real assessment and a guess from the ground.

You'll have the number before anything is committed. Send the address and what's worrying you and you'll get a straight answer on whether an inspection even makes sense in your situation, because sometimes it doesn't.

Worth some perspective on a house purchase. Next to what's being decided in that transaction, and next to what a chimney rebuild costs when you find out afterward, it's a line item.

Yes. Masonry work I take on regionally, but an inspection is a different proposition. It's a day, a report and a drive. Send the address and what you're worried about over by clicking here, and you'll get a straight answer on whether it makes sense before anybody commits to anything.

Nobody should answer that from a distance, myself included, and there are two separate questions inside it.

One is whether the flue is clear. Creosote buildup and blockages are what cause chimney fires, and that gets checked by the trade that cleans flues. It isn't my work and I'd send you to them for it.

The other is whether the chimney and firebox are sound. Is the masonry intact, is the liner in reasonable condition where it can be seen, is the firebox cracked, is the stack stable, is there anywhere hot gas can get to that it shouldn't. That's a masonry question and it's what an inspection here covers.

Both matter. A clean flue in a cracked chimney is not a safe fireplace.

Until you know, don't light it. That's a cheap decision. And if the chimney is dropping brick, leaning, or you can see cracks through the firebox, that isn't a wait-and-see.

It's worth one, and this comes up regularly. A contractor starts a crack repair, gets into it, finds the problem is much larger than the crack, and tells the owner the whole chimney has to come down.

Sometimes that's right. Sometimes it isn't the chimney at all. I've been out to chimneys that were separating from the house, which is a foundation question wearing a masonry costume, and no amount of chimney work would have solved it. A second opinion sometimes agrees with the first. Either way you'll know which problem you're actually paying to solve.

Somebody who works in the trade, and that's rather the point. An adjuster is assessing a lot of different things across a lot of different buildings, and masonry is one line on a long list.

What a written report from a mason gives you is cause and scope. What failed, what's behind it, how far it runs, and what putting it right actually involves, itemized instead of lumped. That's the form a carrier can act on, and it's the form that holds up when a claim gets paid short and you want to say why.

Three situations bring people here. A claim already denied or underpaid, where you need an independent read on cause. A dispute over whether damage is impact, weather or ordinary wear, because those three get treated very differently. And documenting a building before work starts, which is the one people skip and then regret.

Two things I won't do. I won't tell you what your policy covers, because that's your carrier's language and not mine. And I won't write a conclusion I don't hold. A report that says what you wanted it to say is worth nothing to you the moment somebody pushes on it.

Yes, and plenty of people buy one for exactly that. You paid for the assessment, so it's yours.

It's also the only way to get prices you can actually compare. Hand every contractor the same written list of what needs doing and you're comparing three prices for one job. Let each of them decide for himself what the job is, and you're comparing three prices for three different jobs. The cheapest is usually cheapest because it covers the least, and that's very hard to see when all you've got in front of you is a number.

Start with the mason. A masonry inspection costs a fraction of what an engineer costs, and for most of what goes wrong with brick, stone and chimneys it's the right expertise anyway. Mortar failing, brick spalling, stone coming loose, a crown that was never adequate, a chimney taking water. Those are masonry questions and you'll get masonry answers.

If it does turn out to be structural, you've lost nothing. You found out early, you know why, and an engineer billing by the hour isn't starting from a blank page.

I inspect as a professional mason. That covers the condition of the brick, block, stone, mortar, crowns, flues and flashing, the likely causes of what I'm seeing, and what a repair would involve. It's the great majority of what goes wrong on a masonry building.

Anything structural is an engineer's determination by law. Finding that out early and cheaply, instead of after somebody has repaired the wrong thing, is part of what the inspection is for.