Our Work
The details of a brick replacement in Chuluota
What spalling looks like on a chimney
Spalling is the face of a brick breaking away in flakes, chips or whole slabs. The fired outer face of a brick works as its protective skin, and once it is gone, the softer body behind it takes rain directly and wears faster. You may see pitted faces, rounded edges or brick fragments collecting on the roof below the chimney.
A spalled brick is not dangerous in itself, but it is a sign that water is getting into the masonry. Our specialists inspect every face of your Chuluota chimney during the free inspection and mark which units have failed and which are still sound.
Bricks at the roofline
Where a chimney passes through the roof, flashing seals the joint between brick and roofing. When that flashing fails, water soaks into the lower courses and can spall bricks that sit just above the shingles. The damage often shows as a band of flaking faces a course or two above the roofing.
Replacing those bricks means working with the flashing in place or refitting it afterward. We plan the two together, so the new bricks and the flashing finish as one watertight detail instead of two separate repairs that meet badly.
Repointing the joints around the new bricks
It is hard to tell which joints in a damaged area are letting water in. For that reason, BIA maintenance guidance recommends repointing every mortar joint in the damaged section of wall, not just the joints around each replacement brick.
If the joints around the spalled bricks are soft or open, we include repointing of that area as a separate line. You see both prices, and the brick replacement and repointing are finished with the same mortar and profile. Our specialists define the area on the estimate, so the boundary of the work is clear before it starts.
Why we do not skim over spalled faces
It can be tempting to smear mortar, filler or caulk over a spalled brick to make it look whole. The patch covers the damaged unit without replacing it, traps moisture against the weak brick behind it and tends to loosen over time, taking more of the face with it.
We replace the brick instead. On a chimney in Chuluota that has old face patches, our specialists remove them during the free inspection where they are loose, so you can see the condition underneath before approving the work.
