One of the most shocking and dramatic signs of settlement is a chimney separating away from the rest of the home. A professional foundation contractor will be able to assess the damage and identify the cause and extent of the problem. Because this is often one symptom of a potentially serious foundation issue, we recommend checking the rest of the house for problems as well.
A Word Of Warning: filling in the void between your house and chimney is not the answer! Many homeowners will have the void filled with masonry, foam, caulk, or some other material. This is a temporary fix only — and it’ll have to be removed when the real repair is done.
(Top) A chimney is tilting away from the home foundation by about 2-3″.
(Bottom) The chimney Re-leveled and Re-supported by lifting chimney foundation back to its original position using hydraulic bottle jacks with solid concrete blocks and steel. We then permanently concreted the hydraulic jacks, concrete blocks and steel with a lot of rebar all together to create a structurally sound substructure foundation to support the chimney/fireplace foundation.
Chimneys will sometimes fail when they have a missing or inadequate chimney footing. When this occurs, your chimney has not been designed with the proper structural support, and it must fail over time.
However, chimneys experience tilting problems most commonly when the structure has been built on poor supporting soils.
If the soils supporting your chimney are not sufficient to hold its weight, the chimney may begin to sink, causing it to separate from the rest of the home and tilt outward.
If this is the case, it’s possible that the soils underneath the rest of your home are also unable to hold the structural weight of your home. A foundation expert should be consulted to see if other issues with your foundation are present.
