Repair Options

Smoke chamber repair in Lake Monroe, step by step

Stepped brick inside the chamber

Many masonry chambers are built by stepping each course of brick inward over the one below, known as corbeling. The Florida Building Code keeps corbeled walls within 30 degrees of vertical and asks for the inside to be parged smooth. Left bare, the steps form a row of ledges facing the smoke.

Parging turns those steps into a smooth, sloping surface. Our family-owned team prices it upfront for homeowners in Lake Monroe, with no hidden fees.

Sprayed parging for tight chambers

Some chambers are too narrow or too high to reach well with a trowel. For those, manufacturers make sprayable refractory material applied through the damper opening or from above. One such system offers a sprayed version alongside its trowel product for chambers that are not easily accessible. The prep, cleaning and repair of loose brick still come first.

You learn which method suits your chamber and why. Call (645) 465-4122 for a free smoke chamber inspection in Lake Monroe.

Loose brick comes before parging

Parging is a finish coat, not glue. Spreading it over loose or crumbling brick hides the problem for a while, then the coat cracks away with the brick behind it. Where we find loose units, we reset or replace them in refractory mortar first, then parge over sound masonry.

The loose areas are pointed out and priced on their own line before any work starts. Our smoke chamber experts in Lake Monroe never cover up a problem they can fix.

Why exterior stucco does not belong inside

Stucco, masonry cement and patching compounds from the hardware store are made for walls, not for the heat and acidic smoke inside a fireplace. The code calls for refractory mortar on the inside of a masonry smoke chamber. We sometimes find the wrong material from an earlier repair, and it has to come out before the chamber can be parged properly.

Our smoke chamber experts point it out and include its removal in the written price for Lake Monroe.

When a sweep points to the chamber

Chimney sweeps are often the first to notice a smoke chamber that needs work, because they see it while cleaning. A note such as unparged corbels or gaps in the chamber can be hard to picture. We show you the area with a light, explain what the note means and give you a clear written price for the repair.

That second look is free in Lake Monroe, from a family-owned team that does the repair itself.