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Bloomington's housing went up in the post-war decades, and most of it came with a brick chimney. Those chimneys have now stood through sixty or more Minnesota winters. The wear shows in the same places on street after street: crowns cracked through, caps rusted or missing, and joints washing out on the weather side. We repair chimneys across Bloomington, from East Bloomington ramblers to the split-levels near Bush Lake.
The work is the standard chimney repair lineup. New concrete crowns, stainless caps, repointing, flashing and firebox-side fixes. Most Bloomington chimneys do not need a rebuild. A crown-and-cap package plus targeted repointing usually resets one for another decade or two. When the top courses are already loose, a partial rebuild above the roofline is the durable fix, and that work is on our chimney rebuilds page.
Tell us about your project and we’ll get right back to you.
The crown is the concrete top that sheds water off the chimney. Builders in the 1950s and 60s often finished crowns with a thin mortar wash instead of poured concrete. Mortar wash cracks early, and every crack lets water into the brick below it. Minnesota runs 80 to 100 freeze-thaw cycles a year, so a small crack opens a little wider each winter.
We cut off the failed wash and pour a real crown with an overhang and a drip edge. A stainless cap keeps rain and animals out of the flue. Those two pieces stop most of the water that wrecks chimneys here. Done together, they are the cheapest years you can add to a Bloomington chimney.
Repointing handles joints that have gone soft or open. Brick replacement handles individual spalled faces. Once whole courses rock loose or the stack starts to lean, repair stops making sense, and a rebuild above the roofline is the answer that lasts. We tell you which side of the line your chimney sits on, with photos from the roof.
Bloomington also has a commercial side to this work. Hotels, offices and apartment buildings along the I-494 strip and the Penn-American district carry boiler stacks and parapet chimneys with the same failure points at larger scale. That work runs through our commercial masonry restoration process: assessment first, then a prioritized scope, then the repair.
More about the service itself is on our Chimney Repair page, and everything we do around town is on the Bloomington service-area page.
Answers specific to chimney repair work around Bloomington. Something else on your mind? Call us.
A wall that worries you, a driveway past its best, or a backyard ready to become the good part of the house? Call or send the form and we will look at the site with you and hand you a straight written quote.
Tell us about your project and we’ll get right back to you.