Chimney Sweep in Conklin, NY

Types of Chimney Service We Offer in Conklin

Chimney Repair and Repointing

When mortar joints have sanded out, we grind them back to sound mortar and pack in new mortar soft enough to suit the brick. Loose top courses get relaid. If the brick itself has crumbled, we replace those bricks with a close match. It's slow, careful work, done from a roof platform, not a ladder leaning on the gutter.

Chimney Sweeping

Drop cloths, a sealed opening, brushes sized to your flue and a filtered vacuum. The inspection comes after the flue is clean, while we're still there to show you what we found.

Crowns

Hairline cracks get a flexible crown coat. A crown that's broken up gets removed and rebuilt with an overhang that drips water clear of the brick.

Liners for Oil, Gas and Wood

We size stainless liners to the appliance: heavier grades for wood and oil, lighter for gas. Details on chimney liner installation.

Caps and Waterproofing

A stainless cap stops rain and animals at the top. A breathable water repellent on the brick slows the soaking that leads to freeze damage.

Chimneys After 2006 and 2011

Conklin was hit hard twice. The June 2006 flood cut off the town center and destroyed hundreds of homes, and Tropical Storm Lee brought the river back over its banks in September 2011. Many houses along Route 7 were gutted and rebuilt, some were raised, and some were torn down.

Brick that sat in flood water for days soaked up silt and moisture. The following winters froze that water inside the brick, and we still see the result: the lower courses of some Conklin chimneys, the part in the basement or just above grade, are softer and more spalled than the top. That's backwards from a normal chimney, and it's a tell that the brick was underwater.

What to Check if Your House Flooded

• The cleanout door at the base of the chimney, and whatever is sitting behind it
• Mortar in the basement part of the chimney, which may have washed out
• The furnace or water heater connection, which silt can partly block
• Any steel liner or connector pipe that sat in water and may be rusting

Farmhouse Chimneys

The older farmhouses toward Corbettsville often have a center chimney that was built for a kitchen range and a parlor stove, sometimes with two or three flues and no liner at all. Over a century the house settles, the chimney shifts a little, and the clay or bare brick inside cracks. Before one of those flues goes back into service for a wood stove, it needs a camera inspection and usually a stainless liner. We've seen old farmhouse flues with gaps between bricks wide enough to see daylight through, which is fine for a chimney nobody uses and dangerous for one that carries a fire.

Many of these chimneys also lost their original tops long ago and were patched with whatever was handy. We rebuild the top courses and crown properly, then put a cap on it so the next century goes better than the last one.

Winters on the State Line

Conklin gets the same punishing winters as Binghamton, about 86 inches of snow and around 133 days a year below freezing, and the hill farms near the Pennsylvania line catch more wind. Each freeze-thaw cycle works water a little deeper into old joints. In our experience a chimney that gets repointed and capped in time goes another 30 or 40 years. One that doesn't ends up as a rebuild.

Up the other river, north of the city, we sweep and repair plenty of chimneys in Chenango Bridge too. Our page on chimney sweep service in Chenango Bridge has the details.