Home › Blog › Heritage Hill Chimney Rebuild Walkthrough
May 3, 2026 · Historic Restoration
A Heritage Hill chimney rebuild on a 1900 to 1920 brick home runs roughly $6,500 to $14,000 for an above-the-roofline rebuild and $15,000 to $25,000 for a full top-to-foundation job. Plan on a soft lime-rich mortar to match the original brick, an HPC review window of three to six weeks, and salvage of the original face brick wherever it comes down clean.
Most of the chimneys we rebuild in Heritage Hill were laid sometime between 1895 and 1925. The brick was made in regional kilns. The mortar was lime and sand with a small amount of natural cement. The flashing was lead-coated copper or terne. Then the house got 100 winters of freeze-thaw cycling on top of it.
By the time we get the call, the crown is gone. The top eight to fifteen courses of brick are loose. Mortar joints look like they were carved out with a chisel. There is a brown stripe of efflorescence running down the chase wall above the second-floor ceiling. The flue is open to the weather. Sometimes there is a tarp on it.
Below is what an actual rebuild looks like, start to finish, on a typical Heritage Hill brick home. Specs, sequencing, what gets reused, and where the dollars actually go.
The National Weather Service Grand Rapids forecast office tracks 40 to 60 freeze-thaw days per winter. A freeze-thaw day is one where the temperature crosses 32 degrees both directions inside 24 hours. Water gets into a porous mortar joint, freezes, expands roughly 9 percent in volume, and cracks the joint a little wider. Then it does it again the next night. Forty times a winter, for a hundred winters.
Two failure modes show up over and over on Heritage Hill chimneys:
Crown failure first, then everything below. The crown is the concrete cap on top of the chimney. On houses built before about 1950, the crown was usually just mortar, not poured concrete. It cracks, holds water, and over a few decades soaks the brick courses below it. Once the top three or four courses are saturated, freeze-thaw chews through the mortar joints fast.
Hard repointing accelerating soft brick spalling. Somebody in 1985 had the chimney repointed. They used Type S Portland mortar because that is what the bag at the hardware store said. Soft 1905 brick expanded against hard modern mortar that would not give. The face of the brick popped off in chunks. We see this on roughly half the calls.
The fix on both is the same: rebuild with brick that fits the era and a mortar mix that fits the brick. Not the other way around.
A senior consultant comes to the property. We walk the chimney from the ground first with binoculars, then on the roof if it is safe, then inside the attic to look at the chase. Three things we are answering on that visit:
How far down is the damage. If the bottom of the loose mortar is at the roofline, you have an above-the-roof rebuild. If we can chase soft mortar down past the second-floor ceiling line, the rebuild is going farther. Sometimes much farther.
What brick is on the chimney now and is it salvageable. We look at brick face condition, brick type, and the percentage that will survive a tear-down. On a clean Heritage Hill rebuild we expect to salvage 50 to 70 percent of the face brick. The rest gets matched with reclaimed brick from a salvage yard or with new brick from a manufacturer that still produces era-appropriate sizes and colors.
What flashing is currently doing the work. Most pre-1960 Heritage Hill flashing is lead-coated copper soldered into a step-and-counter system. If the existing flashing is intact and copper, we work with it. If it is aluminum or step flashing alone with no counterflashing, the rebuild plan includes a new step-and-counter copper flashing system tied into the new brick.
By the end of the visit you have a written estimate that lists scope, brick plan, mortar mix, flashing plan, scaffold plan, HPC review path, and a calendar with two windows: when we can start and how many working days we need on site. We do this within 48 hours of the appointment.
Heritage Hill is the largest urban historic district in Michigan. The City of Grand Rapids Historic Preservation Commission reviews exterior changes inside the district under Chapter 8 of the city code. A chimney rebuild qualifies as exterior masonry work, which means a Certificate of Appropriateness is on the path.
Two review tracks exist:
Staff-level COA. If the rebuild uses matching brick and a compatible historic-style mortar, and the chimney profile and height stay the same, a planner can approve it administratively. Turnaround is usually one to three weeks. Most chimney rebuilds we do in Heritage Hill go this route.
Full HPC review. If the rebuild changes the chimney profile, height, brick color, or visible cap design, the application goes to the full Historic Preservation Commission. The HPC meets monthly. Plan four to six weeks from application to approval.
Submitting a clean COA application matters. We provide brick samples, a mortar sample with the proposed sand and lime ratio, photos of the existing chimney, drawings of the proposed scope, and the manufacturer specs of any new brick. A clean packet usually clears staff review on the first pass.
The full code language and current procedures are on the City of Grand Rapids Historic Preservation page. If you are a homeowner, do not skip this step. The penalty for unpermitted work in Heritage Hill includes a stop-work order and the possibility of being required to undo the work at your expense.
Pre-1930 Grand Rapids brick is soft, irregular, and beautiful in ways modern brick struggles to copy. Most of it was fired locally. Color varies from a warm orange-red to a deep iron-stained brown depending on which kiln, which clay seam, and how hot the firing ran.
Three sourcing strategies on a typical rebuild:
Salvage the original. Every brick that comes down clean gets set on a pallet. The crew hand-chisels the old mortar off the bed and head joints. Salvaged brick goes back on the street-facing sides of the rebuild. This is the brick that keeps the chimney looking right.
Reclaimed brick from regional yards. West Michigan has a few salvage yards that stock pre-1940 brick pulled from demolished buildings. We bring two or three samples from the yard to compare against the existing chimney in daylight. Color match is more important than size match for hidden faces, and size match matters more for visible courses. We pay $1.50 to $4.00 per brick depending on age and condition.
New brick that ships era-appropriate. Belden, Glen-Gery, and a few smaller specialty manufacturers still produce brick in the colors, textures, and dimensions that work next to 1900-era Grand Rapids brick. New brick goes on the chimney back, the inside of the chase, and any course that will not be visible from the street.
The mix of these three sources is what HPC reviewers care about. A chimney rebuilt entirely in new brick, even good new brick, reads as new from the sidewalk. A chimney rebuilt with salvage on the visible faces and good matching new brick on the hidden faces reads as restored. Same number of bricks, very different result.
This is where most botched chimney rebuilds go wrong. Modern mortar comes in five ASTM C270 types: M, S, N, O, and K. The compressive strengths run from 2,500 psi for Type M down to 75 psi for Type K. Hardware-store bagged mortar is usually Type N or Type S, both of which are too hard for soft pre-1930 brick.
For a Heritage Hill chimney we typically spec one of these:
Type O at roughly 350 psi when the brick is moderately soft and the exposure is sheltered. This is a 1:2:9 lime to cement to sand mix by volume.
Custom lime-rich Type K-equivalent at roughly 75 to 150 psi when the brick is very soft, the mortar joints are wide, and the exposure is severe. This is a 1:3:10 cement to lime to sand mix or sometimes pure lime putty and sand for the most fragile faces.
Type N at 750 psi only when the brick is later (post-1940), denser, and the exposure is high.
The principle is simple: the mortar must always be softer than the brick. When the wall moves with temperature and moisture, the mortar should be the part that gives. If the mortar is harder than the brick, the brick faces spall instead. Fix one wall in the wrong mortar and you have created a problem that costs more to undo than the rebuild did.
Sand color and grit matter too. We send a small mortar sample from the existing chimney to a regional analysis lab when the original color is unusual. Match the binder, match the sand, and the new pointing reads invisible from twenty feet.
An above-the-roofline rebuild on a typical Heritage Hill chimney looks like this on the calendar:
Day 1: Scaffold goes up. Roof gets protected with plywood and a tarp around the chimney base. Crown gets removed. The crew identifies where the rebuild starts and where it lands.
Days 2 to 3: Brick comes down course by course. Every clean brick goes on a pallet. Old mortar gets scraped and bagged for disposal. Existing flashing gets evaluated and either preserved or pulled.
Days 4 to 8: The chimney goes back up. Salvage on the visible faces, new matching brick on the hidden faces. Mortar goes in with full bed joints, full head joints, and fully tooled for a proper seal. The flue liner gets inspected and replaced if cracked.
Days 9 to 10: New crown poured. The crown should overhang the chimney profile by 1.5 to 2 inches and have a drip kerf cut underneath. Step-and-counter flashing is tied into the new brick. The chimney cap gets installed.
Day 11 onward: Cure time. Mortar wants three days minimum above 40 degrees ambient before scaffolding comes down. Seven days before it sees a hard rain. Twenty-eight days for full strength.
A full top-to-foundation rebuild adds another five to ten working days and usually a structural engineer review on the foundation footprint.
People expect the brick to be the expensive part of a chimney rebuild. It usually is not. Here is roughly how a $9,000 above-the-roofline rebuild breaks down on a typical Heritage Hill home:
| Line item | Approx share |
|---|---|
| Labor (crew of two to three, ten working days) | 55-60% |
| Scaffolding and roof protection | 10-12% |
| Brick (salvage + reclaimed + new matching) | 8-12% |
| Mortar, lime, sand, custom mix | 3-5% |
| Flashing (copper step-and-counter) | 5-8% |
| Crown pour, cap, flue liner inspection | 5-8% |
| HPC application, drawings, samples | 2-4% |
Labor is the dominant cost on every historic chimney rebuild. The mortar mix takes longer, the brick salvage takes longer, the HPC compliance documentation takes time, and the careful tooling of every joint takes longer than a production rebuild on a 2010 ranch.
That is also where the value lives. A rebuild done in the right mortar with the right brick lasts forty to sixty years. A rebuild done in the wrong mortar fails inside fifteen and damages everything around it on the way out.
A full above-the-roofline rebuild on a Heritage Hill home typically runs $6,500 to $14,000 in 2026. A partial rebuild from the crown down ten or twelve courses is usually $3,200 to $6,500. A full top-to-foundation rebuild on a tall three-story chimney can clear $20,000. Brick salvage and HPC review add cost on top.
If your home sits inside the Heritage Hill Historic District boundary, exterior masonry work that changes visible material or appearance generally needs Historic Preservation Commission review. In-kind repair using matching brick and mortar usually qualifies for a staff-level Certificate of Appropriateness. Full rebuilds visible from the street go to the full HPC. Plan three to six weeks for review.
Pre-1930 Grand Rapids brick is soft, low-fired, and forgiving. It expands and contracts with freeze-thaw cycling. Modern Type N or Type S Portland mortar is harder than the brick. When the wall moves, the mortar refuses to give, and the brick face spalls off instead. Historic chimneys need a lime-rich Type O or even softer custom mix.
Often yes for the visible faces. We salvage every full brick that comes down clean, set them on pallets, scrape the old mortar with hand chisels, and rebuild with the original face brick on the street-facing sides. New matching brick fills the back and interior. This is what HPC reviewers want to see and what keeps the chimney looking right.
Two to four weeks of on-site work for most projects. Partial above-roof rebuilds finish in five to eight working days. Full top-to-foundation rebuilds with brick salvage and a custom mortar mix typically run twelve to eighteen working days. Add the HPC review window and the project calendar usually spans six to ten weeks total.
May through October. Mortar needs ambient temperatures above forty degrees Fahrenheit to cure properly, and ideally above fifty for a few days after the pour. We will rebuild in early November with hot-water mix and tarped scaffolding when needed, but spring through early fall is the cleanest cure window. December through March is repair-only weather.
A senior consultant will walk the chimney with you, take photos and brick samples, and produce a written estimate within 48 hours. Free, no-obligation, no pressure.
About the author. Masonry Grand Rapids is a West Michigan masonry contractor network with decades of regional brick, stone, and mortar experience. We specialize in historic restoration across Heritage Hill, Eastown, Cherry Hill, and the older Grand Rapids neighborhoods, plus chimney rebuilds, tuckpointing, retaining walls, and stone veneer across the wider West Michigan region.
Related reading. Chimney Repair & Rebuild service page · Tuckpointing in Grand Rapids · Historic Masonry Restoration · Masonry Cost Guide