Chimney Service Requests in Duncanville

Local dossier · Duncanville, TX

Across the top of a masonry fireplace opening there is a steel angle carrying the brickwork above it, and on Duncanville's 1960s and 1970s houses it is now old enough to matter. The lintel is bedded into the masonry, and when moisture reaches it, it rusts — and rusting steel expands to several times its original volume. It has nowhere to expand to except into the brickwork it is holding up, so it lifts it. The signature is unmistakable once you know it: a horizontal crack running along the line just above the fireplace opening, sometimes with the courses above visibly displaced. It is called rust jacking and it does not stop on its own, because the crack it creates admits more water to the steel that caused it. The repair is to expose the lintel, remove the corrosion or replace the steel, and rebuild the affected courses. Prime Chimney Experts checks the lintel line specifically on every masonry inspection here, because it is the sort of finding that is obvious in a photograph and invisible to someone who is not looking for it — and it is far cheaper addressed at the hairline stage than after the courses have moved.

Hastings Green, Wheatland, Cedar Ridge and Stratford Park — a classic southwest Dallas County suburb of 1960s-to-1980s brick ranches.