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Repair of brick mortar joints
Mortar joint damage from freeze-thaw cycles.More on tuckpointing It’s another beautiful day in Oregon and today we re-pointed another chimney. As you can see in the photo below, numerous places on chimney have mortar joints that are cracked or rotted away; there are...
Fireplace Damper Repair
The Top-Of-Chimney Replacement Damper So you have a damper that will not open or close, is rusted out or is non-existent. The economical solution is to have a top-closing damper installed. The economical way to replace a fireplace damper This...
Gallery Of Repairs
Rebuild-in-progress
RBIP2
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20170724_134519-Copy-scaled-1
20170720_152402-scaled-1
20170910_150733-scaled-1
Howard-lift-3
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stucco10wc-2-e1517788078596
RutCB2ndFloor
RTTwisterAtSubfloor
Pookie-liner
oil-exhaust-pipe-install
Liner2
ExtendedFbox-for-blockwork123
DBtp
Cultstoneflash2
Cultstoneflash1
Cultstoneflash-before
Cultstone-flash-3
Crown-and-cap-install
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Brick-patch-in
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Client Testimonials
I highly recommend the Willamette Chimney crew. They were personable, worked hard, and gave an honest assessment of our chimney. Thank you!
We think that Willamette Chimney are the BEST brick masons. Cliff and Doug just finished a repar and the job looks fantastic!
On time, professional.
- What is tuck-pointing?
- Does the chimney need tuck-pointing or does it need to be rebuilt?
- What is chimney flashing?
- Why does my fireplace smoke?
- What do you clean when you do a chimney cleaning?
Tuckpointing is the process of grinding out bad mortar joints and tooling in new mortar into the prepared joint. To see our 9-minute Youtube video showing the process, click this link: Tuck-pointing Procedure
Check out our blog post for an in-depth study on tuck-pointing: Chimney tuckpointing blog post
This decision (tuck-point or rebuild) comes down to a few factors:
- How bad is the condition of the mortar joints, and how deep is the erosion of the joint?
- What is your budget?
I have been called out to a 100-year-old chimney that I could practically push over from the roof and should have been rebuilt. The customer had limited funds, so tuckpointing was better than doing nothing. A week after the mortar had hardened I went back on the roof and pushed on the chimney to see if it would move. It did not! This requires a deep dive, so click here and dive in!
Chimney flashing is the metal pieces you see at the bottom of the chimney where the chimney meets the roof. The purpose of chimney flashing is to keep water from running down the chimney and getting into the house. To see a 1-minute video showing some chimney flashing work our Portland crew performed, click here: Rooftop Chimney flashing video
To take a deeper dive on flashing, take a look at our chimney flashing blog post.
- You have a dirty chimney.
- The chimney is not tall enough.
- The house is surrounded by large trees or is at the bottom of a mountainside, cliffside or the bottom of a valley.
- The damper is not opening all of the way.
- Clogged/dirty rain cap.
- A ceiling fan operating in the room while a fire is burning.
- Lots of foot traffic back and forth in front of the fireplace, combined with lots of door(s) opening and closing frequently.
- The furnace kicks on and pulls air down the chimney.
- The chimney is on an outside wall and is cold at start-up of a fire.
- Improper fire construction.
- You are not using a fireplace grate.
- Atmospheric pressure differences throughout the house.
- A kitchen range hood is on during the burning of the fire.
We clean the chimney flue itself. For an open fireplace, we also clean the smoke chamber above the damper, and the smoke shelf, which is a cavity behind the back wall of the firebox. Click here to learn more.
- To learn how we clean woodstoves, click here.
- To learn how we clean oil furnace chimneys, click here.
- To learn how we clean pellet stoves, click here.