The technician showed me exactly what he was doing, step by step, while he worked. It was really interesting to look inside the flue with his tablet camera. Very open service!
Chimney Repair in Cherry Hill, NJ: Crowns, Caps, Flashing, Liners
A cracked crown or a gap in the flashing doesn’t stay small. Water gets behind the masonry, freezes, and pushes the joints apart a little more each winter. We find where the water is actually getting in before we touch a single brick.
5.0from 15 Google reviewsServing eleven New Jersey counties · Open Every day, 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM
What homeowners notice first
It rarely registers as a chimney problem at first — a brown stain spreading across the ceiling near the flue, a musty smell after rain, or mortar dust collecting on the damper shelf. By the time it’s visible inside the house, water has usually been getting in for more than one season.
Crowns and caps: the roof over the flue
The crown is the concrete slab that caps the masonry and sheds water away from the flue tile; the cap and spark arrestor sit above it. A cracked or spalled crown lets rain sit directly on the brick instead of running off, and every freeze that winter drives the crack wider.
- Cracked or spalling crowns rebuilt or resurfaced
- Rusted or missing caps and spark arrestors replaced
- Crown sloped and sealed to shed water away from the tile
The question is never whether the chimney needs work. It’s where the water is getting in — find that, and the rest of the repair writes itself.
The repair, broken into five parts
Most jobs are two or three repairs found on the same camera run, quoted together instead of one at a time.
- Crown repair or rebuild
- Cap and spark arrestor replacement
- Flashing resealed at the roofline
- Liner relining or sectional repair
- Repointing and masonry rebuild
Two different chimneys, two different repairs
Close to a third of Cherry Hill’s homes were built in the 1960s, when the township was still Delaware Township farmland — real brick and block masonry, repaired by repointing, crown rebuilds and liner sections. Right behind it came the 1970s and 80s, when factory-built fireplaces went in by the thousands; those units are now 35 to 55 years old, and the honest fix is often chase-cover and firebox replacement, not repointing. New Jersey’s 2024 residential code requires a masonry footing to bear below the local frost depth, about two and a half feet here — one reason older slab-foundation chimneys are now visibly separating from the wall. Not every chimney nearby is Cherry Hill’s own postwar brick. Toward Haddonfield, roughly half the housing predates 1940 — chimneys built for coal, switched to oil, then to gas, each conversion leaving the flue more oversized. Collingswood’s streetcar-era boom left a similarly old stock, but many of its twins share one masonry stack across a party wall, serving two households’ flues at once. That kind of masonry wants a softer, lime-based mortar — a modern hard mix just spalls the brick face instead of absorbing the movement.
- 1960s brick and block: repointing, crown rebuilds, liner sections
- 1970s-80s factory-built fireplaces: chase-cover and firebox replacement
The liner is the part nobody sees, until it fails
Census figures show utility gas as the primary heating fuel in 81.3 percent of Cherry Hill homes, against just 2.1 percent still primarily heated with fuel oil — most of that conversion already happened. What often didn’t happen is a matching change to the flue: a liner sized for an old oil boiler is oversized for a modern gas furnace, and an oversized flue runs cooler, which means more condensation — the slow failure that eventually shows up as a stained ceiling or a liner in pieces on a camera run.
- Stainless liner sleeved through the existing flue
- Damaged tile sections repaired without a full liner swap
- Flue resized to the appliance actually connected to it
From our own jobs
From camera run to finished repair
A camera run down the flue, recorded before any repair is quoted.
A firebox with spalled brick and a damaged damper, before work starts.
The same firebox after rebuild, repointed and resealed.
A replacement damper, tested for a clean seal.
Reviews from real jobs
5.0
15 reviews on Google
Read on
I have an ancient farm home with an unlined brick chimney. They cleaned the soot away with soft brushing without disturbing any of the ancient interior mortar joints.
The tech pointed out a small fracture in our firebrick that I would have overlooked entirely. Patched it up there for a very fair amount.
Chimney repair questions, answered plainly
How do you tell a crown problem from a flashing problem?
A camera run down the flue and a look at the crown, cap and flashing from the roof usually settles it. We show you the photos either way before quoting the fix.
Do you match the brick and mortar color?
As closely as the materials allow. On older stock like Haddonfield or Collingswood, that usually means a softer, lime-based mortar, not a hard modern mix.
My chimney is a metal factory-built unit — can it be repaired?
Sometimes — and sometimes replacement is the honest answer. Units from the 1970s and 80s are now 35 to 55 years old, and some original parts are no longer made.
Is a leaning chimney a repair or a rebuild?
It depends what the camera and a look at the footing show. Exterior chimneys on 1950s-60s slab foundations are the ones we most often see pulling away from the house.
Do I need a permit for chimney repair here?
Cherry Hill issues building permits through its own Department of Code Enforcement and Inspections, not the county — worth confirming before work that changes the outside of the chimney.
More chimney services in Cherry Hill
Chimney Sweep
Soot and creosote out, camera before any brush goes down the flue.
See how it worksChimney Inspection
Two inspection levels, camera footage and a written report either way.
See how it worksFireplace and Stove Service
Stubborn pilots, seized dampers and worn gaskets, gas or wood.
See how it works