When a chimney is leaning, cracked through the brick or coming apart at the top, patching it is throwing good money after bad. We take it down to sound masonry and rebuild the stack straight, brick by brick, matched to the original.
A brick stack that has shifted can drop masonry, pull away from the house, or come down in the next quake or storm. Once it has moved, no amount of pointing puts it back plumb. Rebuilding it is the only fix that makes it sound again.
A chimney rebuild takes a stack that has failed structurally, one that is leaning, bulging or cracked through the brick, down to a sound base and builds it back up straight, with new brick and mortar matched to the original so it looks right and stands solid.
Not every chimney problem is a rebuild. Worn joints get repointed, a few bad bricks get swapped, a cracked crown gets recast. A rebuild is for when the trouble has gone past the surface and into the structure, where the stack itself has lost its line and patching it would only hide that.
In Los Angeles the usual causes are age and movement. Decades of soft, washed-out mortar let the courses shift. A quake gives the stack a shove. The section above the roofline, the most exposed part, takes the worst of the weather and is often the first to go while the base is still sound.
That is why most of the rebuilds we do are partial. We take the chimney down to the last course of solid, plumb masonry, usually around the roofline, and rebuild from there. A full rebuild from the firebox up is less common and only when the whole stack has gone.
Either way the point is the same. Once a chimney has moved, it will keep moving, and a leaning stack near a roof and a walkway is not something to leave. Rebuilding it is what makes it safe and lasting again, rather than buying another season.
Tell us what the stack looks like when you call. These are the ones that usually mean the structure has gone, past what a surface repair can fix.
A chimney should stand dead straight. If it looks like it is tipping, leaning away from the house, or curving off line as it rises, the masonry has lost its footing and it will keep going the same way.
There is no pointing a lean back straight. We rebuild the leaning section from the last plumb course up, so the new stack stands true and stays that way.
Cracks that zigzag up through both the bricks and the mortar, following the joints like a staircase, mean the stack is being pulled apart by settling or movement, well past surface wear.
Once cracks run through the brick itself, the courses are no longer tied together. That section gets taken down and rebuilt, rather than filled and painted over.
The stack above the roofline gets the sun, the rain and the wind with nothing to shelter it. It is often the first part to fail, dropping mortar and loose bricks onto the roof while the base is still solid.
This is the classic partial rebuild. We take down the failed top section and rebuild it on the sound masonry below, then finish with a new crown and cap.
When you can see bricks sitting proud of the others, a belly in the wall of the stack, or gaps where bricks have already dropped out, the mortar is no longer holding the structure together.
Repointing needs sound brick around sound brick to work. Once whole courses have let go, the honest fix is to rebuild them, not to keep patching a stack that is coming apart.
Older unreinforced brick chimneys are the part of a house most likely to be damaged in an earthquake. A stack can crack, twist or partly collapse even when the rest of the house looks fine.
After a shake we look at whether the chimney is still tied and plumb. If it has moved, rebuilding it, often with reinforcement, is what brings it back to safe.
The most expensive mistake with a failing stack is paying to patch it twice before rebuilding it once. A leaning chimney gets repointed, the cracks get filled, and within a season or two it is moving again, because none of that touched the reason it moved.
The other trap is rebuilding only what is obviously broken and leaving a course of loose, tired masonry underneath it. New brick set on a bad foundation just fails from below. That is why the first job is finding the last course that is genuinely sound and plumb, and building from there, not from wherever the damage happens to stop.
We match the new work to the old in brick, in mortar strength and in color, and we tie it in properly so the rebuilt section behaves as one stack with the part below it. Done right, a rebuild is the last time that chimney needs anything but a sweep.
A rebuild costs more than a repair, so we only recommend it when a repair genuinely will not hold. When it will, we say so.
A rebuild is a real project, so we keep it tidy, protected and predictable from the first day to the last.
We look at how far the failure runs and where the last plumb, solid course sits. That decides whether this is a partial rebuild above the roof or a full one, and it sets the price.
How much comes down, what goes back up, the brick and mortar we will match to, and the number. Nothing starts until you have said yes to it.
Roof and grounds get covered, then we take the failed masonry down by hand to that sound course. The old brick and debris are cleared off site, not left in your yard.
New brick matched to the original, laid plumb course by course in matched mortar, tied into the sound masonry below and reinforced where code calls for it, up to full height.
We cast a new crown with a proper overhang, fit a new cap and flue collar, reflash where the stack meets the roof, and can seal the fresh brick against the next wet season.
Only if the structure has gone, meaning the stack is leaning, cracked through the brick, or has loose and missing courses. If the brick is still sound and only the joints, faces or crown are worn, that is a repair, not a rebuild. We look first and tell you honestly which one it is, because a rebuild is the bigger job and we would rather not sell you one you do not need.
A partial rebuild takes down and rebuilds only the failed section, most often the part above the roofline, on top of the sound masonry below. A full rebuild takes the stack down much further, sometimes to the firebox, when the whole thing has failed. Most rebuilds are partial, which keeps the cost and the disruption down.
Yes. We source replacement brick as close as we can to the size, color and texture of what you have, and we match the mortar for strength and tint. On a partial rebuild the new section is meant to read as part of the same chimney, not a patch, so the match matters and we take time over it.
A partial rebuild above the roofline is usually a couple of days, weather permitting. A full rebuild takes longer. We give you a realistic window when we scope it, and because fresh masonry needs time to cure we will not rush the crown and cap onto mortar that is not ready.
Where the design and the code call for it, we build in reinforcement, which an old unreinforced brick stack never had. A rebuild is the natural time to add it, since the chimney is coming apart anyway. We will talk through what makes sense for your chimney when we scope the job.
Yes. We cover the roof and the grounds before we start, and the old brick, mortar and debris leave with us. You are not left with a pile of rubble in the yard or a mess on the roof to deal with.
It depends mostly on how much has to come down and go back up. A short partial rebuild above the roofline sits at the lower end, while a tall stack or a full rebuild from the firebox costs more. We look, give you the number before any work starts, and lay out partial versus full so you can decide.
Tell us what the chimney is doing and we will tell you where it stands, repair or rebuild. Scope first, price before we start, and a stack built back straight and matched so it looks like it was always there.
