Our Services
From the cap to the firebox
Any open chimney is covered before we leave for the day, and the debris is hauled away when we finish.
Keeping wood clear of the masonry
The code keeps house framing from sitting tight against a masonry chimney. The code asks for a 2-inch airspace to combustible material for chimney masonry inside the house or built into an outside wall, 1 inch where the chimney stands wholly outside, and noncombustible fireblocking where it passes floors and ceilings. Those gaps are rarely visible from the room, but they come into view whenever repairs open a wall or an attic.
Framing found too close to the chimney during work in Gabriella is shown to you, with the options, before we go any further.
Covered at night, cleaned up every day
Repairs that run longer than a day never leave an open chimney exposed overnight. At the end of each work day we cover any opening we have made, so rain and animals stay out until we return. Loose mortar, old brick and packaging are cleaned up as we go and hauled away when the job is finished, rather than left in a pile beside the house.
It is how every repair runs at homes in Gabriella, from a single cap to a rebuilt top.
Bringing an idle fireplace back into use
Weather keeps working on a chimney whether or not anyone lights a fire. Caps rust, crowns crack and animals move into flues that stand idle. Before a fireplace that has sat unused is brought back into service, the whole chimney deserves a careful look, from the cap down to the firebox floor, so the first fire back is not the test of whether it is sound.
Idle chimneys across Gabriella get the same check, with anything that needs repair listed before the next fire.
Settling at the base of the chimney
Under the building code, the footing under a masonry chimney must be concrete or solid masonry with a thickness of at least 12 inches, and it must project at least 6 inches out from the face of the wall it supports on all sides. When a chimney settles unevenly, the signs appear higher up, as a widening gap at the wall, cracks that step through the brick or a top that no longer sits plumb. Movement like that is investigated before any surface is patched.
Whatever the base of the chimney shows in Gabriella is explained plainly, including when the question belongs with a structural engineer.
