Chimney Repair & Masonry in Chamblee, GA

Chimney Repair & Masonry for Chamblee Homeowners

Chamblee's residential core — Huntley Hills, Keswick Village, Sexton Woods — is largely 1950s and 1960s ranch, and the chimneys are honest, simple, single-flue masonry. There is nothing exotic to them, which is precisely why they get forgotten. The typical Chamblee call is a house that has been in one family for decades with a fireplace used steadily and swept once, twenty years ago, or a newer owner who has inherited that history. Sixty-year-old crowns are also right at the age where the original concrete has cracked through and started letting water into the stack.

1950s-1960s single-flue ranch masonry; original crowns now at the age where they crack through and admit water.

Almost every chimney failure in this part of Georgia is a water story. The crown — the concrete slab across the top — is the stack's roof, and when it cracks, rain runs straight into the masonry core instead of off it. From there the freeze-thaw cycles we get in January do the rest: water in the brick expands, and the face of the brick shears off in flakes. That is spalling, and once it starts it accelerates, because every flake exposes more absorbent surface. A crown recast while the cracks are hairline is a routine job. The same chimney left four winters is a rebuild from the roofline up, at several times the cost.