Chimney Repair in Windsor, NY

Why Old Brick Needs Soft Mortar

Chimneys built in Windsor in the 1800s were laid in lime mortar. Lime mortar is soft and breathable, and it's supposed to be. Every time water gets in and freezes, the mortar gives a little so the brick doesn't have to. Over 150 years the mortar wears away, and the brick survives. That's the deal old masons made, and it works.

The trouble starts when someone repoints with modern, hard Portland cement mortar. Now the joint is harder than the brick. The next freeze can't crush the mortar, so it cracks the brick faces instead, and in a few winters the bricks along every new joint start popping off. The National Park Service's guide on repointing historic masonry says it plainly: new mortar should be softer than the brick around it. We follow that on every older chimney.

How We Repoint

We cut out loose mortar to a depth of about twice the joint width, by hand or with a grinder guided carefully along the joint, clean out the dust, mist the brick and pack new mortar in layers. Then we tool the joints to match the old profile and brush the face. The color takes a few weeks to settle in.

Types of Chimney Repair and Service We Offer in Windsor

Crown Rebuilds

A cracked or missing crown lets water straight into the top of the chimney. We build a new crown with an overhang so rain drips clear of the brick, or seal hairline cracks with a flexible crown coat if the crown is otherwise sound.

Top Rebuilds

When the top courses above the roof are loose, we take them down to solid brick and relay them, saving and reusing the old brick where we can.

Liners

Many old Windsor flues were never lined. Before a stove or insert goes on one, we camera it and usually install a stainless liner sized to the appliance.

Caps and Waterproofing

A cap keeps the rain off the flue. A breathable water repellent slows soaking without trapping moisture inside the brick, which is the one mistake you can't make on old masonry.

Sweeping and Inspection

We include an inspection with every sweep, and we charge $250 for the first flue and $150 for each additional one.

Unlined Flues in Old Houses

Many chimneys from the 1800s were built with no flue lining at all, just the inside face of the brick. That was normal for open fires and cook stoves of the time. A modern stove or furnace is a different load: hotter in places, cooler and wetter in others, and much more sensitive to draft. Bare brick flues also leak smoke and heat through every gap in the mortar into the walls and attic. Before we put a stove or insert on one, we run the camera down it, and in nearly every case the answer is a stainless liner. It turns a 150-year-old chimney into a safe one without touching the brick you see from the street.

Windsor's Winters and the River

Windsor sits on the west bank of the Susquehanna where Route 17 meets Route 79, and it gets the full Southern Tier winter: around 86 inches of snow and about 133 days a year below freezing. The river keeps the air damp in spring and fall, so brick stays wet going into each freeze. That's why chimney tops in the village age faster than the rest of the house.

In our experience, the chimneys that last are the ones with a good crown, a cap and joints repointed once every few decades. None of it is glamorous. All of it is cheaper than rebuilding a chimney from the roofline up.

West of the city, the 1800s brick of Owego's historic district needs the same careful masonry. Our page on chimney sweep service in Owego covers that village.