Chimney repair in Sterling Heights

Chases from the 1980s and 1990s

Sterling Heights became a city in 1968 and kept building for the next three decades. A lot of the houses from the later part of that run have a factory-built fireplace with a metal flue inside a framed chase. The chase is a box of two-by-fours and plywood, sided to match the house, with a galvanized sheet metal cover on top. Those covers were never made to last fifty years, and many are past thirty.

The photo shows how it goes. The cover rusts at the edges first, then around the flue collar. Water sits in the low spots, finds the seams and runs into the plywood. The step flashing at the base corrodes too, because the same water runs down the chase onto it. Once the wood framing under the cover is soft, a new cover alone won't stop the leak.

Along the Clinton River

The Clinton River cuts across the middle of the city, past Dodge Park on Utica Road, and many of the streets near it have tall, mature trees. Leaves and needles collect on chase covers and crowns under those trees and hold water against the metal and concrete. Chimneys there tend to need a closer look at the top.

What the common repairs start at

These are starting prices. The written quote has your number.

• A stainless chase cover with one hole starts at $1,000 plus $1 per square inch of the chase top. We measure all four sides, since a lot of chases aren't quite square.
• Rebuilding a rotted wood frame under a chase cover runs $895 to $2,349. We show you the framing once the old cover is off, before any of that work is done.
• Flashing repair or replacement runs $595 to $3,495.
• On a brick chimney, crown repair starts at $1,000 plus $1 per square inch.

If a ladder isn't safe on your roof, a lift or scaffolding adds $1,249. We'll say so before quoting.

From the first look to the work

We look at the whole chimney first, top to bottom, and photograph what we find. You get the photos, what we'd recommend, what a smaller fix would and wouldn't do, and a written price. Nothing starts until you approve it. A chimney inspection in Sterling Heights is $49 if you want that look before deciding, and the $49 comes off the repair.