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4 Reasons To Cap Your ChimneyHere are four reasons to put on a high-quality stainless steel cap on your masonry chimney:
1. Keeps animals, especially raccoons and birds, from setting up home in your chimney or fireplace. 2. Keeps rain and moisture from building up inside chimney. If water gets inside your chimney and then freezes, your chimney will get damaged. 3. Sheds ice and rain from the chimney crown, which is the solid limestone cover on the top of the chimney structure. A chimney cap will extend the life of the crown and eliminate some causes of cracking of the flue tile. 4. Increase draft of chimney, especially in areas with constant wind. Bruce D. Ryan’s Masonry Construction specializes in chimneys like the old masons used to do.
The next time you are driving around Cincinnati, or any other old town, take a look at the homes that have a solid limestone cap. If you’ll notice, these chimneys are invariably in better condition than the newer homes of today. Why is that? Because the natural limestone caps that masons used in the “old days” protected the chimney more adequately by not allowing water to get down inside of the chimney and freeze. Today’s chimneys only have a man-made cement cap on top, and these caps usually crack days after they are put on, or within a year some sort of crack develops. If you doubt this, check the top part of your chimney and you will see for yourself. The problem arises when water seeps down inside the chimney in the winter months and freezes. It then expands, which causes the brick to spaul, chip, or separate from the mortar. By replacing your cement cap NOW (and maybe a course or two of brick if needed) you will be saving the life of your chimney for many years to come. As I am sure you know, the cost of home repairs is very high these days. It would be less expensive to do a small amount of repair now, rather than a major repair later. Call 378-3251 to schedule your Cincinnati chimney repair NOW!
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