The chimney takes the worst weather on your house, and the firebox takes the worst heat in it. We repair both — because they're one masonry system, and we're masons.
Most chimney problems get handed to the wrong trade. Roofers patch around chimneys. Sweeps clean them. Neither one rebuilds them — and a chimney is a masonry structure, top to bottom: brick, mortar, crown, flue, and the firebox at the bottom where the fire actually burns.
When the crown cracks, water pours straight down into the stack. When the mortar joints fail, the brick starts spalling and the stack starts leaning. And inside the house, the same years of heat that aged the chimney have been cracking the firebox panels and firebrick you look at every winter. It's one system, failing at both ends — and it takes a mason to fix it properly.
Champion Brick Repair has been laying and repairing brick in Texas for 50 years. Chimney and fireplace repair is core work for us: we rebuild the outside, we repair the inside, we match the mortar so the repair disappears, and we back every bit of it for life. This page is the full service. For the chimney by city, start with our chimney repair hub.
Crowns and mortar caps. The slab on top of the stack is the first thing to fail and the cheapest thing to save. We seal cracked crowns, and when a crown is too far gone we pour a new one — see our chimney mortar cap repair page for the cap itself.
Tuckpointing and repointing. Failed mortar joints ground out to sound mortar and repacked with matched mortar — the same craft as our tuckpointing work, done up on the stack where the weather hits hardest.
Spalling and broken brick. Brick faces that have popped off, cracked units, and loose brick in the stack are cut out and replaced with matched brick — not smeared over with mortar and paint.
Leaning stacks and rebuilds. A chimney that leans or has separated from the house gets a straight answer first: if the stack is failing, we take it down to sound work — usually the roofline — and rebuild it plumb. Our chimney repair hub covers the stack top to bottom.
Spark arrestors and caps. Damaged spark arrestors replaced and new ones installed, so the top of the chimney is finished and closed to animals and embers.
Refractory panels. Most newer fireplaces are prefab metal units lined with refractory panels, and those panels are a wear item: years of heat crack them, usually the back panel first, right through. A panel cracked through no longer shields the firebox the way it was built to. We remove the cracked panels and install new manufacturer panels — a flat-quoted job, priced below.
Firebrick and firebox mortar. On masonry fireboxes, we replace damaged and deteriorated firebrick, cut out missing or crumbling mortar, and repoint the firebox joints so heat stays where it belongs.
Firebox rebuilds. When a firebox is too far gone to patch — brick loose, joints gone, back wall failing — we repair or rebuild it outright instead of dressing up a firebox that will keep failing.
Flue tile and dampers. Damaged flue tile replaced and damaged fireplace dampers replaced, so the fireplace drafts and closes the way it should. Our firebox repair page covers the firebox work in detail.
On the chimney: cracks across the crown on top; white staining (efflorescence) bleeding down the brick — that's water moving through the stack and carrying salts out; brick faces popping off or whole bricks loose; mortar you can crumble out of the joints with a finger; a chimney that leans or has pulled away from the house.
In the fireplace: a refractory panel with a crack you can see through, or panels bowing and crumbling at the edges; gaps where firebox mortar has fallen out of the joints; loose or cracked firebrick; smoke staining on the brick or wall above the fireplace opening — smoke going somewhere it shouldn't; water or rust stains inside the firebox after rain.
Any of these is worth a photo and a straight answer before the next fire or the next storm. Text photos to (817) 523-1540 — for the fireplace, one shot straight into the firebox tells us most of what we need.
1. We grind out the failed joint — 5/8 inch deep, or until we hit sound mortar — and cut out the brick and panels that are actually damaged. We never smear new mortar over old, crumbling material. 2. We match the mortar with our MortarMagic process: a three-point match on color, texture, and sand, custom-blended for your chimney so the finished work matches the existing color and texture instead of showing as a patch. 3. We tuckpoint with a grout bag and tool the joint to the profile your chimney was built with, then brush-finish it. 4. We acid wash and clean up — no mortar smeared across brick faces, no mess left on your roof or in your fireplace. Replacement brick goes in as matched units, and prefab panels go in as the manufacturer's panels, fitted and sealed.
Straight ranges, the same ones we publish in our brick repair cost guide: minor chimney repairs run $150–$1,000. Crown sealing runs $400–$800; a new poured crown runs $1,500–$3,000. A full chimney repoint typically runs $1,500–$4,000+. Partial and full stack rebuilds run $4,000–$15,000+ depending on height and how much of the stack has to come down.
In the fireplace: refractory panel replacement on a prefab unit is a flat $895 for a standard panel replacement. Masonry firebox work — firebrick, joints, rebuilds — is quoted from photos, because it depends on how much has failed.
The biggest cost drivers on any chimney job are height and access, then how much material is truly failed versus just weathered. That's exactly why we quote from photos first: text us pictures and you get a real number, not a range and not a trip charge.
A chimney stands above the roofline with nothing protecting it — full Texas sun, driving rain, and winter freeze-thaw cycles hit it from every side at once, while the walls below are sheltered by the roof. The mortar in a chimney stack ages years faster than the same mortar in the wall under it. Add expansive clay soil working on the chimney's footing and a hundred-plus-degree summer baking the crown, and a chimney that was never touched will start asking for real repairs in the same 20-to-30-year window as the rest of the mortar on the house — usually sooner, and always from the top down. The firebox ages on its own clock: every fire is a heat cycle, and panels and firebrick only take so many before they crack.
We're masons — chimney structure is our trade, not an add-on to roofing or cleaning. MortarMagic matching means the repair disappears into your existing chimney instead of announcing itself. We fix the wrong-trade patch jobs too: caulked crowns, smeared joints, and painted-over spalling are regular tear-outs for us. And when a leaning chimney turns out to be a footing problem rather than a masonry problem, we tell you so and bring in our sister company Metro Foundation Repair as one team — we'd rather hand you the honest answer than sell you a rebuild that won't hold.
Don't pay a trip charge to find out what your chimney needs. Text wide shots of the chimney, close-ups of the worst damage, and one photo straight into the firebox to Cheryl (office) at (817) 523-1540 — call or text, photos welcome anytime. We'll tell you what it is, what it costs, and if it turns out to be somebody else's trade, we'll tell you that too. We serve the full Dallas–Fort Worth metro: Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Allen, Irving, Arlington, Garland, Richardson, Carrollton, Lewisville, and everywhere in between.
This page is the full service — the stack outside and the firebox inside, on one page. The city pages carry the local detail: chimney repair in Fort Worth, chimney repair in Plano, chimney repair in Richardson, chimney repair in Arlington, chimney repair in Irving, chimney repair in Garland, chimney repair in Carrollton, chimney repair in Frisco, chimney repair in McKinney, chimney repair in Grand Prairie, chimney repair in Mesquite, and chimney repair in Denton. The chimney as a whole is organized on our chimney repair hub, the cap itself on our chimney mortar cap repair page, and the firebox on our firebox repair page. Text photos to (817) 523-1540 for a free quote.
Minor chimney repairs run $150–$1,000. Crown sealing runs $400–$800 and a new poured crown $1,500–$3,000. A full chimney repoint typically runs $1,500–$4,000+, and partial or full stack rebuilds run $4,000–$15,000+. Height, access, and how much of the chimney has failed drive the number — text photos to (817) 523-1540 for a free exact quote.
The crown — also called the mortar cap — is the slab on top of the chimney stack. It takes direct sun, rain, and freeze-thaw with nothing protecting it, so it cracks before anything else on the chimney. Once it cracks, water pours straight down into the stack. Sealing or rebuilding a cracked crown early is the cheapest repair on the chimney; left alone, it becomes a rebuild.
Both. Inside the house we replace cracked and heat-damaged firebrick, repoint and rebuild firebox mortar joints, rebuild fireboxes that are too far gone to patch, replace damaged flue tile and dampers, and replace cracked refractory panels in prefab fireplaces. The chimney and the fireplace are one masonry system, and we repair the whole thing.
We quote refractory panel replacement as a flat job: $895 for a standard panel replacement on a prefab fireplace — the heat-cracked back and side panels come out and new manufacturer panels go in. Masonry fireboxes are quoted from photos, since the work depends on how much firebrick and mortar has failed.
Yes. Our MortarMagic process is a three-point match — color, texture, and sand — custom-blended for your chimney so the repair disappears into the stack you already have. Spalled and broken brick are replaced with matched units, and joints are tooled to the same profile as the original work.
It depends on why it leans. If the stack itself is failing — cracked, spalling, mortar gone — we rebuild it from the roofline up and it stands straight for good. If the chimney's footing is moving, that is a foundation question: our sister company Metro Foundation Repair handles those, and we work as one team. Either way you get a straight answer from photos first, before anyone sells you anything.
The panels and firebrick are the heat shield between the fire and the framing and structure around the firebox. A panel that is cracked through — or firebox mortar that has fallen out of the joints — no longer does that job. Surface checking is cosmetic; a crack you can see through is not. Have it replaced before regular use, and send us a photo straight into the firebox if you want us to tell you which one you have.
A sweep cleans the flue and inspects it. A mason repairs the structure — brick, mortar, crown, and firebox. Roofers patch around chimneys; sweeps clean them; when the chimney itself is cracked, spalling, leaning, or leaking through the masonry, that is a mason's job, and it is the only chimney work we do. If all you need is a cleaning, we will tell you that instead of selling you masonry.
Most single repairs — a crown, a set of refractory panels, a section of repointing — are finished in a day. Partial and full rebuilds take longer, and the schedule comes with your quote before any work starts.
Yes — every chimney and fireplace repair we make is backed by our lifetime warranty on workmanship. If our repair fails, we come back and make it right.
Text photos to Cheryl at (817) 523-1540 — wide shots of the chimney plus close-ups of the worst damage, and for a fireplace, one photo straight into the firebox. We quote most chimney and fireplace work from photos with no trip charge.
