How one failure leads to the next on a masonry stack
Water is behind most chimney repairs. A cracked crown or failed cap lets rain onto the top courses of brick and into the flue. The mortar there washes out first, because mortar is meant to be softer than brick, and once the joints are open the brick starts soaking up water too.
Inside the flue, water attacks the joints between clay tiles. A liner with open joints lets heat and combustion gases reach the brick and, on some chimneys, the framing around it. That is why a crown repair that looks minor can prevent a liner repair that is not.
Repair it, rebuild the top, or take it down
Damage confined to the joints is repointed. Where brick faces have spalled across a section, those bricks are replaced. Where the top of the stack has loosened, the part above the roof is usually taken down to sound masonry and rebuilt, which is a job of a different size.
A stack rebuilt above the roof has to meet the California Residential Code: at least 3 feet above where it passes through the roof, and at least 2 feet higher than any part of a building within 10 feet. A neighbor's second-storey addition built since the chimney went up can change what that means for your house.
Owners who no longer use the fireplace sometimes remove the chimney above the roof and close it off. That is a legitimate choice, and worth weighing before paying to rebuild a flue nobody lights.
Send a photo of the chimney from the street if you can, and say which side the damage is on. Send the details of the issue and request an estimate for the specific work.
The City of Long Beach, bracing and structural work
Long Beach is an incorporated city with its own building department, so the question of whether a rebuild or structural repair needs a permit goes to the City of Long Beach, not to LADBS or the County. The city decides for your address.
Earthquake Country Alliance notes that inadequately braced chimneys are a common problem, and the California Department of Insurance lists bracing the chimney among earthquake retrofit measures. If the stack is being repaired or rebuilt anyway, that is the time to ask about bracing.
What moves a chimney repair estimate in Long Beach
Scope sets the cost, and scope is only known once the chimney has been properly looked at. The variables:
- 1How much of the chimney is affected: a few joints, one face, or the whole stack above the roof.
- 2Whether new mortar has to be matched to older, softer brick.
- 3Roof pitch, height and covering, and whether scaffolding is needed.
- 4Whether the flue liner is damaged as well.
- 5What turns up once work starts, particularly under the crown.