A chimney crown is the most vulnerable part of your chimney. Typically made of concrete or metal it protects your chimney from rain and snow. The concrete ones are made of left over mortar and sand and only last about 5 to 7 years. They begin cracking and allow rain to soak in and mix with the creosote and ashes found  on the smokeshelf in a masonry fireplace. The rain and ashes form caustic lye. This in turn leaches into the firebox on the back wall and eats the mortar away eventually allowing flames from the fire to escape the firebox. Is yours in bad shape?  Run the tip of a screwdriver along the mortar joint. If it is crumbly water is probably getting in to the fireplace. In addition the intense heat that is found at the back of the fireplace will add to the firebox deswtruction over time.  As long as you burn a fire you can never avoid this fate unless you install one of our heat reflecting shields. They not only offer protection they project about 30-40% more heat back into your room. A great addition to a fireplace for protection and better heating.

A deteriorated back wall becomes a dangerous situation as the missing mortar can allow flames to get to areas of the home it should not be in.

I often relate a story that happened back in 1982. I cleaned a chimney and found the crown in a serious state of disrepair. I told the homeowner about the need for a $100 repair job. They thought that was too much and decided to save the money and neglect the warning. About four years later I got a call one night during a severe rain storm from the former customer. She told me her house was filling with water coming from the fireplace. I reminded her of the repairs I recommended four years earlier. The phone went silent. Their chimney had failed completely and flooded their house with rainwater. It cost $20,000 to fix; I am sure that $100 savings looked awfully small then. We don't give warnings for nothing.

With each recommendation we make to customers, we not only tell you of the problems we have found, we take pictures and show you. We want to instill your trust in us by showing you exactly what we found.

Below are examples of our work. The first one on the left was done by a local chimney "pro" and failed after only two years. On the right is our repair which carries a 15 year guarantee.

We haven't shown all crown repairs we've done over the years, but these will give you an idea of how your chimney will look once we have done the work. Our repairs are made and guaranteed to last many years.

We use CrownCoat for most repairs because it is a flexible waterproof sealant that looks like normal cement when dry but remains tough as the weather changes. Unlike ordinary mortar and sand which is used on 99% of the chimneys around, this is a latex based formula that withstands the ravages of Texas weather. It applies at the consistency of gritty cake icing. Even if your crown is not cracked it is a good idea to have it coated with CrownCoat to prevent cracks from forming.