The masonry Repair and fireplace experts at Brick Repair LLC
have been serving West Bloomfield and Oakland
County Michigan for over 12 years. This chimney was built out of panel brick.
Panel brick is a cross between brick and ceramic tile. The home owners contacted
us about water leaking into the fireplace from the chimney. In order to ensure
that that the leak was properly addressed we recommended tuckpointing the
damaged mortar, replacing the chimney crown and flashing the chimney.
Our Masonry project began with setting up the scaffold. This
was kind of a job in itself. Being a
typical Michigan walk-out basement on a not so
typical pristine home in West
Bloomfield, Michigan,
the height from the top of the chimney to the ground at the back of the house
was easily 50 ft. Once we had all of our scaffolding set the first task was to
address the tuckpointing. We began this
process by grinding out all of the mortar joints in between the brick. We then brushed all the joints clean and took
a propane torch to them to dry and warm the area we were going to repair. Torching the area was done to insure our
mortar would set properly in Michigan’s
February weather. Once the area we were
going to tuckpoint was warm and dry we began pointing in fresh mortar.
After pointing in the fresh mortar we torched the joints
again and then struck them with an s-jointer to ensure proper sealing against
the brick faces. Once we had jointed all
of the brick we began the next stage of our repair. 
Once the crown was completed it was onto the next step of
our chimney repair. This involved some
nontraditional flashing methods, but guarantees a water-tight seal. This is accomplished by grinding out a 3 inch
deep cut into the masonry 1½ inches above the flashing. Waterproof rubber membrane is then inserted
into the cut and torched down over the top of the existing aluminum
flashing. Once the rubber membrane is
firmly in place we proceed to point fresh mortar into the crevice above the
chimney flashing. After the new flashing
is torched and mortared into place we then cut any excess rubber away and seal
all of the seams with neoprene in order to ensure a water tight seal.
At Brick Repair LLC we know of no other masonry repair and
restoration company using all of the above methods combined in order to provide
a 100% leak proof chimney.
Brick Repair LLC We are happy to provide a free estimate for the following services: chimney repair, chimney leak repair, masonry repair, masonry wall construction, chimney construction, chimney crown repair, tuckpointing, replacing damaged brick, concrete, cement, concrete step replacement, concrete step repair, fireplace repair, fireplace construction, cinderblock repair, and cinderblock construction.
We look forward to serving the residents of: Oakland County, Wayne County, Genesee County, and Macomb County.