Masonry and tuckpointing
Mortar is designed to be the sacrificial part — softer than the brick, so it fails first and can be replaced. That only works if somebody replaces it.
Freeze-thaw, which is the whole story
Water soaks into mortar and brick. Overnight it drops below freezing and the water expands by roughly nine percent. By afternoon it thaws. In the Puget Sound that cycle runs dozens of times a winter, and each pass opens the material a little further. Spalling — brick faces popping off in flakes — is that cycle become visible.
- Tuckpointing: the failed mortar is cut out to depth and repacked with new mortar matched to the original
- Brick replacement: individual spalled units swapped out where the damage is local
- Partial rebuild: the stack comes down to a sound course and goes back up
- Full rebuild: when patching stops being honest
A word about matching mortar
Old chimneys were built with soft lime mortar. Repointing them with modern high-strength Portland mix makes the joints harder than the brick, which moves the failure into the brick itself and destroys the units it was meant to save. On pre-war Seattle and Tacoma houses this matters, and it is the difference between a repair that lasts and one that costs you the chimney.
A safer chimney starts with an honest look at it.
Booking takes a minute. Peak season here runs September through November.