Chimney Crown Rebuild Seattle, WA

A chimney crown rebuild is the complete replacement of the concrete cap that sits on top of your masonry chimney. We break out the old crown, clear the top of the chimney down to sound brick, and pour a new crown that is built the way a crown should have been built in the first place: thick, reinforced, sloped to shed water, with an overhang and a drip edge that keep runoff off the brick below. This is the right service when the crown is too far gone to save, or when it was never a real crown at all.

Homeowners in Seattle and the Puget Sound usually need a rebuild for one of four reasons: the crown is cracked all the way through in several places, it is spalling and crumbling at the edges, it was built as a thin mortar wash instead of a poured crown, or it has no overhang so water runs straight down the chimney face. These are structural problems, not surface problems.

If your crown only has hairline cracks and is otherwise solid, you likely need our chimney crown repair service, which patches and coats the existing crown rather than replacing it. A crown rebuild removes and replaces; a crown repair preserves and protects.

Timing & Safety

When a rebuild is necessary and when a repair is enough

A rebuild is the right call when the crown can no longer do its job, which is to keep water out of the chimney structure. That is true when:

• Cracks go all the way through and there are several of them, so a patch would only be chasing new cracks every season
• The edges are spalling and the crown is losing mass, which means the concrete itself has failed
• The crown was built as a mortar wash, with no thickness, no reinforcement and no overhang, so there is nothing worth saving
• The crown is flush with the brick with no overhang, and the top courses of brick are showing water damage as a result
• The crown is bonded tightly to the flue liner with no bond break, and the liner is cracking because the two materials expand at different rates

A rebuild is optional, and usually not the best value, when the crown is thick, sound and properly overhung and simply has a few hairline cracks or worn surface. In that case a crown repair, and in some cases only crown sealing, will extend its life for years at a lower cost. We will tell you which situation you have before any work is quoted.

Safety considerations

The chimney crown is the first line of defense against water entering the chimney. When it fails, rain reaches the flue liner, the brick and the mortar joints, and over time that water can work its way into the smoke chamber and the firebox. Water-damaged liners and deteriorated mortar are not just a leak problem; they can compromise how safely the chimney contains heat and combustion gases.

• Crown work is done from the roof and chimney top. Please do not climb up to inspect or attempt a crown rebuild yourself. Let us assess it from the roof with proper equipment.
• NFPA 211 recommends an annual chimney inspection. A failing crown is one of the most common findings, and catching it before water gets into the structure is far cheaper than dealing with the damage later.
• During a rebuild, the fireplace or appliance connected to that flue should not be used until the crown has cured and we confirm the flue is clear.
• We are CSIA certified and licensed, bonded and insured in Washington, with more than 25 years of experience on Puget Sound chimneys.

Seattle & Puget Sound conditions

Seattle and the Puget Sound region are hard on chimney crowns in a specific way. Our long wet season means a cracked or dished crown sits with water in it for weeks at a time rather than drying out. That water soaks into the concrete and into the top courses of brick. Then, during the freeze-thaw spells we get from late fall through early spring, it expands and forces cracks open wider and pops the faces off brick. Moss and algae take hold on a crown that stays damp, and their roots work into cracks and hold even more moisture. Homes near the Sound, in Tacoma, West Seattle, Everett and along the waterfront, get salt-laden air on top of all that, which speeds up the breakdown of mortar and concrete. A crown with a real overhang and drip edge matters more here than in a dry climate, because it throws that constant runoff clear of the brick instead of letting it run down the chimney face for nine months of the year.