Two Steel Piers Stabilize a Leaning Chimney in Marietta

The homeowner had watched this chimney lean farther away from the house for about ten years. By the time we were called out it sat roughly four inches out of position, with a visible gap where the chimney met the wall. He found us through colleagues in real estate.

The problem

A chimney that keeps moving over a decade is not a masonry problem. The brick is following something underneath it. On this one the movement started at the footing, which had settled and taken the chimney with it. Repointing the joints would have looked better for a season and then opened right back up, because nothing holding the chimney would have changed.

The repair

We installed two structural steel foundation support piers beneath the chimney footing. Each was advanced down to bedrock or equivalent proper load-bearing stratum, past the soil that had already proven it would not hold the weight.

A tree had grown in at the footing and was part of what we had to work around. We took it out at no charge rather than leave it to keep working against the repair.

Bringing the chimney back

With the piers carrying the load, we applied controlled hydraulic pressure and brought the chimney back evenly. Roughly four inches of lean came out of it on this job.

How much correction is possible depends on the chimney, the soil and how far it has gone, so this is not a number we promise before looking at one. Here it came back close to where it belonged.

Masonry repairs

Moving a chimney that has been leaning for ten years loosens mortar that was already deteriorated. Joints along both sides came loose as it came back. Our own masons repaired the affected joints once the structure had stopped moving, which is the right order: mortar goes in after the movement, not before.

The result

The chimney is structurally stabilized on steel, roughly four inches of lean is gone, and the masonry the movement disturbed has been repaired. Structural work and mortar repair were both finished the same day.