Chimney repair in Macon GA - a sound chimney that keeps rain out of the house

Most people call me after a stain shows up on the ceiling beside the chimney, or after a patch that held for a season and then let go. The price turns on how much of the chimney needs new mortar or new brick, whether the flashing has to come off and go back on, and how high and steep the roof is to work from. The schedule turns on the weather, on any permit or design review your street needs, and on what we find once the old joints are open. When I come out, I'll tell you what I think is causing the trouble and write up the scope, so you'll have your own figure before anything starts.

Most chimney trouble I see comes back to water, so I look at the mortar and the flashing where the chimney meets the roof together, because fixing one and missing the other just moves the leak. On an older chimney we'll talk about the mortar before we start, since old brick and new mortar have to get along, and I'll tell you what I'd use and why. Then the crew rakes the worn joints back to sound mortar, replaces brick that's cracked or flaking, and repoints with the mortar we agreed on. At the roof, trade guidance calls for two layers of flashing, the metal strips that seal the gap, with base flashing under the shingles and turned up the chimney and counter flashing set into a mortar joint and lapped over it, so check that any quote for that joint names both. We clean up the roof and the ground around the house before we leave.

Chimneys rarely wear out alone. If the same sandy joints run along the walls of the house, tuckpointing them follows the same steps we use on the chimney, and broken or loose brick in a wall, step or porch is brick repair.

Macon-Bibb requires a building permit for any construction over $2,500 and a zoning compliance, which it also calls a zoning permit, for all construction, and its Building and Fire Safety Department answers questions about what a given job needs. Most chimneys can be seen from the street, so if your house is in a design review district, you'll also need a Certificate of Appropriateness and a zoning compliance before work on any part visible from the street, and you can check whether your property needs a Certificate of Appropriateness with the planning and zoning commission. When a chimney job needs a permit, we handle the application and the inspections, and if you're in a historic or downtown district, we'll help you work through the review steps before the crew starts.

A lot of the chimneys I'm called to in Macon stand on older brick homes, where the first job is working out what the house was laid up with before anything new goes on, and we see the same older brick on jobs in Milledgeville and Fort Valley. We're based in Macon and work across Middle Georgia, including plenty of cities beyond the ones with their own pages here.