Our Process
Spalling brick repair on Winter Springs homes
Hard mortar next to soft brick
Masonry moves slightly with heat and moisture, and the joints are meant to take that movement. As the National Park Service explains, mortar harder than the brick will not give, so the brick takes the stress instead, and it cracks and spalls in ways that cannot be repaired easily.
An earlier repair made with a hard, cement-rich mortar can be the reason faces break beside the joints. When we see that pattern in Winter Springs, the estimate says so, and the replacement mortar is chosen to protect the surrounding brick.
Choosing the replacement mortar
The Brick Industry Association advises that repair mortar should have a compressive strength equal to or lower than the original, and physical properties similar to the existing mortar. A mortar harder than the old one puts the stress on the edges of the brick, where it can pop the face off.
Its guidance names Type N as generally suited to modern work and Type O where mortars with more cement would be too strong. Our specialists match the mortar to the brick in your chimney and list the type on the written estimate, so you know what is going into the wall.
Finding the water before replacing the brick
The first maintenance rule in brick industry guidance is to investigate and determine the moisture source before making repairs. On a chimney, water usually enters at the top or at the roofline, through a cracked crown, a missing cap, open joints or failed flashing.
Our specialists check each of those points on your Winter Springs chimney during the free inspection. The estimate lists the brick replacement and any related repair separately, so you can see which work stops the water and which work repairs the damage it caused. Replacing bricks without that step tends to bring the same damage back to the same courses.
When the damage is in the flue
Brick pieces falling into the fireplace do not always come from the outside of the chimney. They can come from the inside walls, the smoke chamber or a damaged flue lining, which are separate repairs. Fragments of flue tile or smoke chamber material on the smoke shelf point inside, while pieces on the roof point outside.
Our specialists check where fragments are coming from before proposing work on your Winter Springs chimney. If the problem is inside the flue, we explain that repair on its own line, so brick replacement on the exterior is not mistaken for a fix for the interior.
