Chimney Repair for Chicago-Area Homes

Chicago's brick chimneys wear out from the top down. Water gets in through a cracked crown or open joints, freezes overnight, thaws by afternoon and does it again: working from NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals at O'Hare, that happens on about 78 days a year. Each cycle opens the gap a little wider. A repair that would have been a few hundred dollars one spring can turn into a rebuild of the top of the stack a few winters later.

Minor repairs, such as a new cap, small cracks or minor crown work, typically run $200 – $850. Tuckpointing, waterproofing or flashing typically costs $500 – $2,500. Major or structural repairs typically run $1,000 – $7,000. The inspection is free, and the price for your chimney is written down before any work.

Signs you need this

• Mortar sanding or falling out of the joints
• Brick faces flaking, cracking or popping off
• A cracked or crumbling crown on top
• Water stains on the ceiling or wall next to the chimney
• White salt deposits on the brick, or a stack that leans

How we do it

1. Free inspectionWe check the whole chimney and photograph each problem we find.
2. Written scope and priceYou get a list of repairs, what each one fixes and what it costs, so you can do them in order of urgency.
3. RepairJoints, brick, crown, flashing or flue are repaired with materials matched to the chimney, including softer mortar on old brick.
4. Show the workYou get photos of the finished repair and a note on what to watch over the next winter.

Why small repairs become big ones here

Once water reaches the inside of a brick chimney, frost does the rest. The mortar goes first, then the brick faces, then the stack starts to lean or the top courses come loose. Most expensive chimney jobs we see started as a crack in the crown or a few open joints that went one winter too long.

That is the point of a free inspection: catching the cheap repair while it's still cheap.

Permits for chimney work in Chicago

The City of Chicago's Express Permit Program, running since November 2023, covers reconstruction or in-kind replacement of masonry elements such as chimneys when the work is described in the permit application. Small in-kind masonry repairs, up to 50 square feet on a residential building up to four stories, need no city permit, though that exception may not apply to designated or proposed Chicago Landmarks and landmark districts.

Suburbs set their own rules. For any job, we check what your city requires before we start.

What we repair

Most chimney repairs fall into a handful of groups.

• Crowns: crack sealing, resurfacing or a new poured crown
• Mortar joints: tuckpointing with a mortar softer than the brick
• Brick: spalled or cracked brick replaced, including with salvaged Chicago commons
• Flashing: new step and counter-flashing, plus a cricket on wide chimneys
• Flues: fallen or cracked tile, and liners for gas appliances or inserts
• The top of the stack: rebuilt from the roofline when the brick is too far gone