Fakenham Roofers carries out chimney rebuilds for homeowners in East Dereham, reconstructing damaged stacks and making sure the finished job stays sound for years to come.
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A chimney rebuild means taking a deteriorated stack down to a stable course of brickwork and reconstructing it correctly from there. It is necessary when the bricks themselves have failed - spalled faces, deep cracking, or structural movement - rather than just the mortar joints. We scaffold every chimney rebuild so the work can be done properly at height. Once the stack is rebuilt we reset the pots in fresh flaunching and inspect and replace the lead flashings where they meet the roof slope.
We use matching brick to preserve the character of older properties, and lime mortar on stacks built from softer brick, which is the correct specification for pre-mid-20th-century brickwork.
A chimney rebuild is a significant investment. The masonry work itself, done properly with the right materials and mortar, should perform well for a long time. But the chimney does not exist in isolation - it is exposed to rain, frost and wind at the highest point of your house, where problems develop unseen until they are already costly. The difference between a chimney that stays sound for decades and one that starts showing trouble within a few years often comes down to how well the homeowner maintains it in the years after the rebuild.
Aftercare does not mean expensive annual inspections. It means knowing what to look for, checking the right things at the right times, and acting quickly when something changes.
In the first twelve months after a rebuild, the mortar is curing and settling. Lime mortar in particular takes longer to fully harden than cement, and it can show minor surface crazing in cold or dry weather. This is normal. What is not normal is visible cracking in the body of new brickwork, mortar falling out in chunks, or damp appearing on the chimney breast wall below.
If your chimney is actively used - for a wood-burning stove, an open fire or a solid fuel appliance - the flue should be swept by a chimney sweep before first use after a rebuild and at least once a year thereafter. Soot and tar deposits build up regardless of how new the masonry is, and a blocked or partially blocked flue creates a risk that has nothing to do with the brickwork. A professional sweep will also let you know if they spot anything unusual at the top of the flue during their visit.
You do not need to go on the roof yourself to keep an eye on your chimney. From the ground, using binoculars if needed, check the following once or twice a year - typically in autumn before winter sets in and again in spring after frost season:
The most common cause of trouble after a rebuild is water - either getting in through failed flaunching around the pots, through lifted or cracked lead flashings, or through the brickwork itself if incorrect mortar was used originally. On older properties, this is often the result of a previous contractor using cement mortar rather than lime. Cement is harder than the surrounding brick, so as the stack expands and contracts with temperature, the bricks crack rather than the mortar. If a previous rebuild used cement mortar on soft older brick, those cracks can start appearing within a few years.
Frost is the other main culprit. Water that sits in a hairline crack freezes overnight and expands, widening the crack. By the end of a cold winter, what was a hairline is a gap. Catching cracks before the first frost of autumn is the best way to prevent this cycle from taking hold.
A ground-level check has real limits. Flashings, flaunching and the back face of a chimney stack are simply not visible from below. Every few years - or if you notice any of the warning signs above - it is worth having a roofer inspect the chimney from scaffold or a safe access point so the parts you cannot see are properly assessed. This is particularly true if you have recently bought a property and the chimney rebuild history is unknown.
A chimney sweep visiting to clean an active flue will sometimes be able to report on pot condition and may notice obvious flaunching problems, but they are not inspecting the flashings or the back face of the stack. A roofer and a sweep are complementary, not interchangeable.
After any chimney rebuild or repair, keep a note of the date, the scope of the work and any materials specified - particularly the mortar type. If a problem develops later, this information helps any future contractor understand what they are looking at and avoids the risk of someone applying the wrong materials to the repair. If the contractor provided a written quote or job sheet, keep it with the property paperwork.
We carry out chimney rebuilds in East Dereham and across the wider Norfolk area from our base in Fakenham. If you have a chimney rebuild coming up or you want a post-rebuild inspection to make sure everything is holding up, call us to arrange a visit and quotation.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
