Our Process

The craft behind repointing a chimney in Forest City

Why shallow repointing fails early

The Park Service brief ties its depth rule to two goals, an adequate bond and the prevention of mortar popouts. New mortar needs enough contact with sound surfaces inside the joint to stay put through years of rain and heat. Filling only the top of a joint gives it very little to grip.

Popped-out mortar is easy to spot later as short strips missing from otherwise new joints. If an earlier repair on your chimney has failed that way, our specialists cut it back and redo the joint properly, and the free inspection tells you how much of the old work has to come out.

Cutting out mortar without chipping the brick

Grinders are fast, but they are hard to control in narrow joints. Preservation Brief 2 warns that power saws on thin brick joints break the brick edges and overcut the head joints, and Technical Note 46 notes that a grinder cannot clear the full depth of a head joint without damaging the brick beside it.

On a careful job, the short vertical joints are therefore finished with a chisel. Our crew uses power tools only where they can be controlled and switches to hand tools at the head joints and around soft or rounded brick. The edges of your brick stay intact, and the new joints keep their original width.

Scheduling repointing around storm season

Atlantic hurricane season covers June 1 through November 30 each year. Wind-driven rain pushes water into any joint that has opened, and a chimney with failed mortar takes that water into the brick and toward the house.

Booking the free inspection early in the year leaves time to repoint before the season, when the schedule and the weather both allow. Repointing booked within 72 hours of that inspection is 10% off.

What tuckpointing will and will not fix

Repointing restores the mortar joints, and Brick Industry Association guidance notes that water usually gets into brickwork at cracks and separations between brick and mortar. Repointing does not straighten a leaning stack, replace a cracked crown, seal a rusted cap or mend broken brick.

Knowing those limits up front keeps the recommendation straight. We tell you which of your concerns tuckpointing will address and which need a different repair, so the price you approve matches the problem you called about.