Property Maintenance in Caterham (CR3)
The Victorian, Edwardian and interwar houses across Caterham were built with chimney stacks, and a stack is the hardest-worked piece of brickwork on any house. It stands clear of the roof, takes weather from every side, and nothing about it announces a problem until something inside gets wet.
Why a stack fails before the rest of the wall
A chimney stack is exposed on four sides and on top, with no roof over it and nothing sheltering it.
The mortar joints weather out faster than anywhere else on the building, the flaunching that beds the pots cracks and lets water straight into the stack, and once the brickwork is saturated a hard frost takes the faces off it. Because the stack sits above the roof, everything getting into it travels down — which is why the first sign is usually a damp patch on a bedroom chimney breast rather than anything visible from the garden. Repointing a stack, renewing the flaunching and replacing spalled bricks is ordinary bricklaying done in an awkward place, and it costs a great deal less than taking a stack down and rebuilding it, which is where it ends up if it is left long enough.
Stacks that are no longer used
Where the fireplaces were taken out or blocked up when central heating went in, the stack above them is now redundant. A redundant stack still needs looking after, and it needs to stay ventilated: cap a flue with no ventilation and the moisture inside it has nowhere to go, which shows up as damp on the chimney breast in the room below. The choices are to keep the stack and maintain it, to cap it properly with ventilation top and bottom, or to take it down below the roof line and make good — and which is right depends on the house, the elevation and what it does to the look of the street. Worth a straight conversation before spending, rather than simply picking the cheapest of the three.
Access on a Caterham street, and the trades involved
Getting to a stack safely is most of what makes the job cost what it does, and on the streets climbing the valley sides scaffold often has to stand on ground that steps or falls away.
The brickwork and pointing up there is SG's own team's work. Where the job reaches the flashings and leadwork at the roof line, that is roofing, so we bring in roofers we have used for years and run them ourselves. Access gets worked out at the survey and priced as its own item, and it is the reason to do everything up there in one visit: the stack, the pointing on the same elevation, the guttering and the timber at eaves level.
More in Caterham
Everything we do in Caterham is on the Caterham area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the building maintenance page.
Common questions
Q.01There is a damp patch on my bedroom chimney breast. What causes that?
Most often the stack itself: open joints, cracked flaunching, or a cap fitted without ventilation. Water gets into the brickwork above the roof and travels down, so the repair is up there rather than in the bedroom.
Q.02Should I take the chimney down or keep it?
It depends on the house and the elevation. Keeping and maintaining a stack is usually the better answer where it is part of the character of the street; where it is not, capping it with proper ventilation or removing it below the roof line are both reasonable.
Q.03Why does stack work need scaffolding?
Because it cannot be done safely or properly off a ladder. On the valley-side streets the ground often steps or falls away, which changes what the scaffold has to be, so we look at access at the survey and put it in the price.
Q.04Do you cover Caterham?
Yes. Our office is at 27 High Street, Godstone, a few miles down the road, and we were based in Caterham for years before the move.
Thinking about building maintenance in Caterham?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.