Century-old brick stays on the house
The crew that sets the piers also repairs the mortar, with no subcontractors, so an original mill-era chimney gets saved.
Foundation and Leaning Chimney Repair in Canton, GA
Wet Etowah River terraces and graded hillside fill are letting Canton houses settle, from century-old mill-village chimneys to 2000s basement walls, and Anglin's sets them back on steel piers.
Two housing eras, one town
Why Canton's cotton mill houses and 2000s hillside basements need different foundation repairs
Anglin's handles foundation repair in Canton and across Cherokee County from our Marietta office, with our own crews and steel push piers. Two housing eras sit side by side here. About 6 percent of Canton's homes were built before 1940, and roughly 70 percent were built after 2000.
The older houses near downtown and the mill villages carry original brick chimneys and aging crawl spaces, and the newer ones sit on basements cut into rolling lots. Call 770-422-2924 and a family member or longtime crew leader will come look at yours.
A level crack, waist high
Moving the boxes off your Canton basement wall
You went down to pull the Christmas tote off the shelf and found the wall behind it. A crack runs level, side to side, about waist high, and the block below it leans in far enough that the shelf no longer sits flat. Your house was probably cut into a hillside in the early 2000s, and the dirt pushed back against that wall has been soaking up every storm since.
Wet clay is heavy, and it presses on the same spot year round. A level crack like that is the one worth taking seriously, unlike the shrinkage lines a poured wall shows its first winter. A wall that has started to bow can be braced where it stands, and it keeps coming in until something stops it.
Mill brick and new block
Saving Canton mill brick while bracing new basements
Canton jobs often need a structural fix and careful brickwork on the same visit, which is the trade our family has worked since 1930.
Deep terrace soil costs you nothing extra
Wet ground near the Etowah can send a pier a long way down, and pier depth is unlimited at no extra charge.
A plain answer on veneer versus footing
Cracked brick on an older house is sometimes a veneer problem, and when it is, we say so and quote the smaller repair.
A pier warranty the next BridgeMill or River Green owner keeps
The lifetime warranty on our steel piers moves to the buyer if you ever sell the house.
Wet terraces and pushed dirt
Etowah River terraces and foothill fill under Canton foundations
Canton sits where the Blue Ridge foothills meet the Piedmont, with the Etowah River running through the middle of town. The subsoil here is 40 to 50 percent clay, and the federal soil survey rates most of it low for swelling. It drains slowly instead, keeping water against footings and basement walls.
Soaked ground along the river
- Soil surveys map terrace soils like Wickham and floodplain soils like Chewacla and Toccoa along the Etowah.
- Pockets of Helena soil hold a perched water table 1.5 to 2.5 feet down from January through April.
- The city has closed Etowah River Park and Heritage Park for flooding.
A footing that sits in wet ground for weeks loses support unevenly, so one corner drops first.
BridgeMill and Great Sky fill pads
Communities like BridgeMill and Great Sky were built on rolling ground, with basements cut into slopes and dirt pushed out to make level pads. Fill that was never compacted all the way down settles under a house over the years, and the uphill basement wall carries soil pressure every day.
See how steel push piers reach stable ground on our foundation repair page.
Company houses and their chimneys
Canton mill-village chimneys tipping off the house
Canton has close to 800 homes built before 1940, and houses from that era that have a brick chimney often have a true masonry fireplace under it.
The lean starts at the ground
The chimney tips away from the wall from the ground up, with daylight opening where the brick meets the siding, a bit wider each year, or a crack running up toward the roofline. A lean that starts at the ground usually means the soil under the footing couldn't hold the chimney's weight.
What brings it back
- Steel piers go under that footing, and the chimney is pushed back against the house and anchored.
- Our own masons repair the mortar the movement opened, and a roofer reseals the flashing afterward.
If you've been told to rebuild it, get a second look first, because new brick rarely matches an old house. More on leaning chimney repair.
More ways we can help
Under floors and behind walls in Canton
These are the other repairs Canton's two housing eras call for most.
Floors and crawl-space supports
Old pier-and-beam floors that slope or bounce can be raised from underneath (see sagging and uneven floors). Old brick piers and wood posts under low crawl spaces get replaced with steel posts on poured footings.
Leaning columns on old front porches
A porch column pulling away from its frame gets a pier under the footing before the porch roof sags.
Bowing block walls in hillside basements
A cracked wall on a graded lot gets braced in place with steel beams (see basement wall repair).
Retaining walls on terraced foothill yards
A bulging wall holding back a graded slope gets anchored and locked in where it stands.
Mill No. 1, Mill No. 2, BridgeMill
Two Cantons under one mailing address
Canton is the Cherokee County seat, a cotton mill town that added thousands of subdivision homes after 2000, and many of those communities are now 20 years old or more.
Riverdale, Mill No. 2 and BridgeMill
Canton Cotton Mills No. 1 was finished in 1901, and its Riverdale village still enters at North Street and Riverdale Circle. The No. 2 mill opened in 1923 with a larger village off Center and Juniper Streets, and those company houses were sold to mill workers in the 1960s.
- BridgeMill: built mostly from 1999 to 2006.
- River Green: running along the Etowah.
- Great Sky: on foothill ground north of downtown.
Downtown's 1890s brick district
Downtown's commercial historic district covers two acres of early brick, including the Bank of Canton from 1892 and the Canton Theatre from 1913. The city later stretched its local historic district to match the full National Register district, taking in mill housing and a historically significant Black community.
On streets that old, keeping the original brick matters, which is why we straighten a chimney before anyone talks about rebuilding it.
Where to read up on Canton's mill houses and soil
- West Georgia Textile Heritage Trail, Canton: the story of both Canton Cotton Mills villages.
- Canton Commercial Historic District: the downtown district and its early brick buildings.
- NRCS Helena soil series: the wet, high shrink-swell soil found in pockets around Canton.
Four steps to plumb
How a century-old brick chimney comes back to plumb
A chimney lift on a house this old follows four steps.
- Read the lean. A chimney tilting away from the ground up points to the footing, not the mortar.
- Pier the footing. Two steel push piers usually carry a chimney, driven past the soft soil to strata that will hold it.
- Push and lift at once. Push poles anchored in the yard press the chimney in while hydraulic pressure lifts, and brick anchors set through the mortar joints pin it.
- Mortar goes in last. Our masons repair the joints once the movement stops, and most chimney jobs finish in one day.
Customer Reviews
The work matters.
So does your word.
Hear from homeowners about the repair, the crew, and the finished work.
★★★★★
“Fast, professional. Did an excellent job on getting a leaning chimney resolved and repaired cracked mortar on some bricks.”
Chris K.
Leaning chimney straightened and mortar repaired
River ground, mill brick and basements
Mill houses, BridgeMill basements and Etowah lots
Honest answers before you make a decision.
Still have QuestionsWhile the gap is still small
Before the gap by your Canton chimney gets wider
A leaning chimney can keep moving, and a hillside basement wall keeps taking pressure. Call 770-422-2924 and we'll drive up from Marietta to look at it for free.
Schedule your free structural estimate