Fixing My Chimney...What you should know

Is your chimney cracking, leaning, have falling pieces or a deteriorated crown/wash?

-The crown is the brick or stone detail around the top and the wash is the sloped mortar on top that ensures the water will run off. These two points of your chimney are arguably the most important to address, if one fails then water, gravity and freeze/thaw will systematically destroy your chimney from the top down!

This chimney had a little bit of everything going on but the homeowners Bill & Kathy smartly called a few masonry contractors for opinion and pricing...yours truly got the job!

-The stucco was cracking lightly all around.

-Some pieces were totally flaking off.

-Both the Crown and the wash were cracking.

And on top of that White chimneys are the worst to begin with! You can plainly see all the dirt and grime that collect and nobody thinks to stay on top of the cleaning through its life. Who wants to do all that right? ...except your chimneys are a huge part of your curb appeal, so dirty or deteriorating chimneys are a bad look.

We took this one under the wing and brought her back to life. wire lath all around, two scratch coats, one new brick Crown and a rough stucco finish of Quaker Egg Shell later and this is what we got! Huge difference!

-Wire lath is the wire mesh anchored to the existing chimney to give the mortar something to catch onto during the first plaster process. It also provides some reinforcement to your new stucco system.

-Scratch coat is a layer of mortar plastered on first as a base coat, it is given a scratch finish to give the next coat something to catch onto.

Two scratch coats should be done before the color/texture finish is applied.

-Stucco finish is the final two layer coating to color and texture your job. First coat is the base and then right away come back with the second drag coat to put a finish on.

Each of these coats should be given a week to ten days depending on the weather to cure before the next except the final finish were the two coats are done same day.

If you feel like you may have some chimney issues and you'd like a free consultation please contact us!