The Problem
A severe windstorm moving through the East Lake Forest estates area in August 2025 brought down a large oak limb that struck the upper portion of a 1922 Tudor Revival chimney stack. The impact displaced a 14-course section of the upper stack and shattered the original terra cotta chimney pot, which had been in place since the home was built. The homeowners filed an insurance claim immediately and contacted us to assess the damage and provide the documentation their carrier required. The lower two-thirds of the stack and the corbel courses at the roofline transition were intact. The damage was confined to the impact zone and the courses immediately surrounding it, but the displaced brick had to be rebuilt rather than just reset because several had cracked through.
Our Solution
We photographed the damage in detail from scaffold and provided a written scope with line-item pricing to the adjuster before any work began. The carrier approved the claim within ten days and we mobilized shortly after.
The 14-course damaged section was fully demolished to the last sound course below the impact zone. All cracked brick was removed and replaced with reclaimed common brick sourced to match the original size and color. East Lake Forest Tudor Revival homes from the early 1920s typically used a dark wire-cut brick with narrow horizontal joints, and the replacement brick we specified matches the original texture and range of color.
The rebuild mortar was NHL 3.5, appropriate for the original 1920s lime mortar composition and necessary to avoid introducing a mortar harder than the soft historic brick in the undamaged courses below. We batched with a medium-gray sand to match the original joint tone. The corbel courses at the roofline were repointed as part of the general scope because the debris impact had opened several joints in that zone even where no brick had displaced.
The replacement chimney pot was sourced from an architectural ceramics supplier who stocks period-compatible octagonal Tudor profiles. The original pot profile was reconstructed from the largest intact fragment.
The Result
The rebuilt chimney stack is visually continuous with the undamaged lower courses. Brick tone and joint color match within the normal range of variation found on a 100-year-old chimney. The replacement terra cotta pot matches the original profile closely enough that the change is not apparent at roofline distance. The carrier paid the approved scope and the homeowners handled the pre-existing repointing below the damage zone as a separate maintenance project in the following spring.