In fairy tales, witches often live in spooky old houses with leaning or crooked chimneys. While an askew chimney might seem perfect if you’re a witch trying to brew a potion in your cauldron, it’s not what most homeowners want. Tilting chimneys are a major sign of foundation problems.
It may seem counterintuitive to look upward to your chimney to evaluate the health of your below-ground foundation, but the two are connected. At Pro Foundation Technology, we have the foundation knowledge and expertise to stop your leaning chimney from haunting your home.
Traditionally made from brick or other masonry blocks, the chimney stack is often one of the heaviest elements of your house.
Chimneys sit on concrete footing pads at the foundation level. If that concrete pad is on unstable ground, the heavy weight of the chimney can cause the stack to tilt, pull away from your home or fall toward your house.
Thawing and freezing of the ground beneath your home causes the soil to expand and contract. The constant movement can create gaps or voids in the soil beneath your foundation.
An undersized footing can also cause problems. If the footing is too small, it won’t be able to handle the chimney stack’s weight.
Likewise, if your chimney pad is too shallow, the frost-thaw cycle can cause the ground to settle unevenly. Uneven settlement will knock the stack off-kilter and leave you with a crooked chimney.
In Kansas and Missouri homes, chimneys typically are located either on the exterior of the home or on the interior.
Exterior chimneys run along an outside wall of the house. If you see a gap between the house siding and exterior chimney, it’s a good sign the chimney is leaning.
Even if an exterior chimney is attached to the house with metal straps for stability, the footer pad is still the primary foundation for the stack.
Interior chimneys run through the inside of the home, up from the furnace, and emerge on the roof. You can look in your attic to see if the chimney is centered in its framed opening. An uncentered chimney is a sign the stack is leaning.
In many cases, just looking up and peering at your chimney from the exterior of your home will tell you if your chimney is tilted or tipping.
When chimney masonry pulls away from your house, it leaves a gap. That space serves as an open invitation for moisture and bugs. If the gap gets large enough, rodents, reptiles or other unwanted critters may make your home their home.
When the structural stability of your chimney is in jeopardy, you also put your own life – and that of your family or neighbors – at risk.
Loose bricks can fall from a compromised chimney damaging your roof, vehicles or neighboring properties. Loose bricks can also fall and injure a pedestrian.
If the chimney stack’s movement has damaged the interior chimney liner, the risk of combustible gases leaking into your home increases.
At Pro Foundation Technology, we know the solution to fix your leaning chimney is to stabilize the foundation.
The most common solution is to install foundation piers to support and stabilize the chimney pad.
To do so:
If you’re haunted by your home’s crooked chimney, contact Pro Foundation Technology today. We can help your chimney go from spooky to stable.
