Alpena County
Chimney Repair on the Thunder Bay Shore
Alpena County faces Lake Huron across Thunder Bay in the northeast Lower Peninsula, with the city of Alpena as its centre. The area’s limestone geology is part of its industrial history, and the housing stock in the city itself runs older than the county average, with a good deal of it built when wood and coal were the heating fuels.
Chimneys built for coal are common in older Alpena housing, and they behave differently from chimneys built for gas. They are frequently oversized, often unlined, and were designed for a fuel that produced very different flue temperatures than what is running through them today.
Wind Exposure and Crown Failure in Alpena County
Open exposure across Thunder Bay means chimneys on the lake side of a house take sustained wind-driven rain. The crown – the concrete or mortar wash on top of the stack – is the first thing to go, and once it cracks, water runs straight down inside the chimney rather than shedding off it.
A failed crown is inexpensive to repair and expensive to ignore, because the damage it causes accumulates inside the masonry where nobody sees it until brick starts moving. On exposed lakeshore property it is the first thing we look at.