Chimney and exterior repair, Help!

[lolzphilly]

Hi,
We need to make some repairs to our chimney, which looks like it is going to collapse. We live in an old house and want to get the exterior repaired while we are at it. Chimney, Stucco, soffitts, painting, etc. I am looking for someone to take a look at the pictures I took and prepare me for calling a contractor, maybe give me a ballpark figure to get each thing done, and then for everything. I want to prepare before I call. This is in Downingtow, PA. Here are the links to the pictures I took, thanks in advance:

[Nestor]

It comes as a surprise to a lot of homeowners that chimneys DO occasionally need to be rebuilt. It's just that rebuilding a chimney typically only needs to be done once every 80 to 100 years, and so it's a relatively rare event. Your chimney definitely needs to be rebuilt, and any bricklayer can do that for you. Also, you might consider having a metal "liner" run inside your rebuilt chimney to extend the life of the chimney brickwork even more.

What you need to do is ask your contractor whether the cracks in the exterior stucco are due to building movement, such as a deteriorating foundation. If so, then repairing those cracks may only be a stop gap measure, and the stucco could continue to crack.

You might consider something called an "elastomeric coating" instead of repairing those cracks. Years ago there was an old children's toy called "Stretch Armstrong" where "Stretch" was made of an elastomeric rubber. No matter how far you stretched "Stretch" out of shape, he would always return to his originals shape. That's the trick behind elastomeric coatings; they stretch across gaps in plaster or stucco, but shrink back to their original position if the crack closes up again. If you have an older home without a solid foundation, using an elastomeric coating to keep the rain out of your walls and cover those cracks may make more sense than trying unsuccessfully to fix them. You need to have a contractor take a look at your situation to determine why the cracks are occuring and whether they can be fixed permanently. If not, then it may be a wiser choice to allow the cracks to open and close, but to keep the rain out of the walls by using an elastomeric coating.

PS: If you do opt for an elastomeric coating, be careful about picking a colour you're going to be happy with for an awful long time. That's because elastomeric coatings are applied much thicker than latex paints, and so they last for very much longer than latex paints. In fact, some companies even market elastomeric coatings as "permanent exterior paint". You can't simply paint over an elastomeric coating with a latex paint because latex paints simply can't stretch and shrink as far as elastomeric coatings can, and so the paint will break loose from the elastomeric coating. Any paint store should sell elastomeric coatings, or you could find them using Google, too.

[lolzphilly]

It comes as a surprise to a lot of homeowners that chimneys DO occasionally need to be rebuilt. It's just that rebuilding a chimney typically only needs to be done once every 80 to 100 years, and so it's a relatively rare event. Your chimney definitely needs to be rebuilt, and any bricklayer can do that for you. Also, you might consider having a metal "liner" run inside your rebuilt chimney to extend the life of the chimney brickwork even more.

What you need to do is ask your contractor whether the cracks in the exterior stucco are due to building movement, such as a deteriorating foundation. If so, then repairing those cracks may only be a stop gap measure, and the stucco could continue to crack.

You might consider something called an "elastomeric coating" instead of repairing those cracks. Years ago there was an old children's toy called "Stretch Armstrong" where "Stretch" was made of an elastomeric rubber. No matter how far you stretched "Stretch" out of shape, he would always return to his originals shape. That's the trick behind elastomeric coatings; they stretch across gaps in plaster or stucco, but shrink back to their original position if the crack closes up again. If you have an older home without a solid foundation, using an elastomeric coating to keep the rain out of your walls and cover those cracks may make more sense than trying unsuccessfully to fix them. You need to have a contractor take a look at your situation to determine why the cracks are occuring and whether they can be fixed permanently. If not, then it may be a wiser choice to allow the cracks to open and close, but to keep the rain out of the walls by using an elastomeric coating.

PS: If you do opt for an elastomeric coating, be careful about picking a colour you're going to be happy with for an awful long time. That's because elastomeric coatings are applied much thicker than latex paints, and so they last for very much longer than latex paints. In fact, some companies even market elastomeric coatings as "permanent exterior paint". You can't simply paint over an elastomeric coating with a latex paint because latex paints simply can't stretch and shrink as far as elastomeric coatings can, and so the paint will break loose from the elastomeric coating. Any paint store should sell elastomeric coatings, or you could find them using Google, too.

Thanks for the info. Any chance I could get a ballpark figure to get the chimney rebuilt? Thanks!

[Nestor]

Well, I really don't have a clue as to how much it would cost because I've never had a brick chimney rebuilt. But I can tell you a few things you may want to know:

1. The cause of the deterioration of the chimney is an acid attacking the brick mortar between the bricks. The acid is actually called "carbonic acid" and it's what gives carbonated soft drinks like Orange Crush and Pepsi their "bite". It's a little known fact that when you dissolve CO2 in water, some of the CO2 chemically reacts with the H2O to form H2CO3, or carbonic acid. The more CO2 dissolved in the water, the more carbonic acid you'll have in that water and the more acidic the water will taste.

Carbonic acid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2. Obviously, the more acid you have, the more deterioration of the brick mortar will occur and the faster it'll occur. Generally, when flue gas starts rising through a cold chimney, the condensation will occur over the entire height of the chimney, but that condensation will quickly disappear as the chimney warms up. Where the condensation will persist is near and a few feet above the roof line where the chimney is exposed to the cooling wind from all directions. That's where the most condensation of the water vapour will occur and where carbonic acid can form as a result of CO2 dissolving in that H2O condensate.

In your case, you have a tall chimney, but it doesn't extend very far above your roofline. Consequently, you're likely to only have a short section of chimney that needs to be rebuilt. I've seen some chimneys that extend a good 10 to 15 feet above the roof line, and those chimneys would be much more expensive to rebuild than yours. But, as to how much will need to be rebuilt and how much it'll cost, I haven't got a clue.

3. If you couldn't see any deterioration on the exterior of the chimney, the way you'd tell the chimney's condition is by going to your basement or main floor level (wherever the furnace or boiler is) and looking on the wall BELOW where the flue gas from the furnace or boiler enters the chimney. You see, the furnace or boiler will NEVER be connected to the very bottom of the chimney because if dead birds or leaves and branches ever fall into that chimney and accumulated there, it would plug the chimney and it wouldn't draft properly and potentially fill the house with carbon monoxide. So, the furnace or boiler will always connect to the chimney about 2 to 4 feet ABOVE the bottom of the chimney, and you should find a "clean out cover" on the wall right below where the flue gas from the furnace or boiler enter the chimney. Anything which falls into the chimney will fall past the point where the flue gas enters, right to the bottom of the chimney where the clean out cover is, and so the chimney will still draft perfectly well with a small pile of dead birds at the bottom of it.

For example, in this diagram showing how you can have gas fired furnaces on different levels of a building, the point to note is that the lower furnace doesn't connect to the BOTTOM of the chimney, but to the side of the chimney a few feet off the bottom. There should be a clean out in that diagram to show how someone could remove the stuff that accumulates at the very bottom of the chimney, but it simply isn't shown:

http://inspectapedia.com/chimneys/0993s.jpg

Since the carbonic acid doesn't dissolve the sand in the brick mortar, as the mortar deteriorates in the chimney, all that's left behind is sand. Wind dislodges that sand from the mortar joints and it falls to the bottom of the chimney. The more sand you see at the bottom of the chimney when you remove the clean out cover, the more mortar has been dissolved, and the worse shape your remaining chimney mortar is in; especially the mortar above the roof line.

It's a real good idea to take a mirror with you when inspecting the clean out pit at the bottom of the chimney. Hold the mirror at a 45 degree angle so that you can look upward and see "the light at the end of the tunnel", which is really just the sky shining in through the chimney. As long as you can see that light at the end of the tunnel, your chimney is clear and should be drafting properly, and there's minimal risk of you being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning due to a plugged chimney. It's when you can't see that light at the end of the tunnel that you'd better take action and get the chimney fixed ASAP.

AND FINALLY...

How to hire the best contractor.

What do you do with your old Yellow Pages phone directory when you get a new one each year? Most people just chuck them in the garbage or toss them in their neighborhood recycling bins. A smarter thing to do would be to hold onto it for a coupla years.

You see, when an experienced bricklayer decides to give up the security and seniority of working for a large company, and start his OWN masonary contracting company, it's imperitive that he gets his company name into the Yellow Pages phone directory so that anyone looking for a bricklayer will be able to contact him. Consequently, the first order of business for any new start-up company is to make sure they're in the Yellow Pages phone directory because that's where 90% of their business is going to come from. By keeping your current and previous year's Yellow Pages phone directories, you can compare the companies under each heading to find out who's still in business, who's gone out of business, and most importantly, who's new in the business. Those new companies will typically be started by tradesmen who are confident they've learned all they can working for their former employer, and are wanting to start their own business. And, human nature being what it is, MOST of those people will be careful to play it safe with their new company. They're going to provide the best service they can at a competitive price in the hopes of providing you with the best value for your dollar. That's because that's the safest way to achieve commercial success.

So, by sorting through the listings in your yellow pages phone directory, you'll find all the new start up companies that are doing masonary work in your area. And, since those guys will be fully aware that if they do a good job for every customer, they'll get word-of-mouth advertising from their customers which will help their business grow. Consequently, those guys are the most motivated to give you good work and good service because they know the better the job they do for you, the better the future they make for themselves. So, use human nature to your advantage. The guy that's working for himself is more than happy to help you if you help his company grow. Not everyone is so motivated.

And, if you do hire a new guy just starting out with his own business, and he does a good job for you, you gotta reciprocate. You take a picture of his work, have it enlarged to an 8X10 glossy and mail it to him with a nice letter that he can post in the company office saying how pleased you were with your new chimney and the service he provided and not to hesitate to add your name to any "List of Satisfied Customers" he's putting together.