Chimney Masonry Repair · Tacoma, WA

Repointing a Tacoma chimney without damaging the brick

Mortar you can rake out with a house key, joints washed back behind the face of the brick, thin flakes of brick on the ground below — these are the conditions that send a Tacoma homeowner looking up at the chimney.

Usually the answer is repointing: cutting the failed mortar out and packing compatible mortar back in. On this city's housing stock the word doing the work in that sentence is compatible, because roughly a quarter of Tacoma's homes are old enough that the wrong bag of mortar does more damage than the weather did.

Reviewed by Chimney4u editorial team · Last updated 2026-08-27

On Tacoma's oldest quarter, the mortar decision is the job

Of roughly 97,300 housing units in Tacoma, about 26,200 were built in 1939 or earlier and about 42,200 before 1960 — the oldest housing stock of any city covered on this site. Older brickwork is generally softer and more vapor-permeable than modern brick, and that changes what may be packed back into its joints.

In correctly built masonry the mortar is the weaker material, so movement stresses are relieved in the joints rather than in the units. A mortar harder than the brick will not give, and the stress goes into the brick instead, producing cracking and spalling that cannot be repointed out. Hard, high-cement mortar is also less permeable than most older brick, so moisture leaves through the brick face and deposits salts inside the unit until the crystals pop the face off.

The selection rule. Choose the mortar type with the lowest compressive strength that meets the requirements. The Brick Industry Association says strength is the property most often over-emphasized in mortar selection.
The repointing rule. Repointing mortar must be equal to or lower in compressive strength than the mortar it replaces, and softer and more vapor-permeable than the brick around it.
When the original cannot be judged by eye. On a chimney already patched once or twice — common on housing this age — samples can go to a laboratory rather than the mix being guessed at.

The thaw cycle that opens Tacoma joints

The damage pattern here is not a deep winter. It is repetition. The in-city Tacoma station normals 27.2 nights a year at or below freezing but only 0.7 days that stay below freezing, so nearly every freezing night thaws by day — roughly two dozen crossings of the freezing point in a typical year.

Those crossings land in the wettest part of the calendar: the same station normals 24.4 days a year carrying at least half an inch of precipitation, and the December-to-February quarter takes close to six times as much rain as June through August. Saturated brick that freezes and thaws repeatedly can crack, craze, spall or disintegrate, as water inside expands on freezing and levers thin plates off the face. A chimney is the worst-exposed masonry on the house, and the Brick Industry Association notes that chimneys, parapets and copings need repair at shorter intervals than the wall below them.

Repointing where a second approval can apply

Repointing is exterior work, and on a chimney it is usually visible from the street — which puts it in a different position from most chimney jobs in four parts of Tacoma. North Slope, Old City Hall, Union Depot/Warehouse and the Wedge are Tacoma Register historic special review districts carrying design review, and North Slope alone holds more than 950 properties.

The consequence is about appearance, and it is worth knowing whether or not review applies to you. On a visually sensitive chimney the mortar color, the sand in the mix and the tooled joint profile belong in the specification rather than left to the day, and the finished profile matches the original. A small sample area repointed first gives you — or a reviewer — something real to look at before the whole stack is committed.

When a Tacoma chimney needs more than its joints repacked

Repointing restores the weather surface of the masonry. It adds no structural capacity, straightens nothing, and does not replace brick in bulk. Three things move a Tacoma job past it.

The damage is in the units, not the joints. The Brick Industry Association names cracks wider than about 2 mm, cracks running through multiple bricks, stepped or diagonal crack patterns, widespread spalled brick and any out-of-plane movement as conditions warranting professional investigation rather than joint repair.
The proportion tips. Spot repointing is preferable where the rest is sound, but once roughly a quarter to a half of an area needs work, doing the whole elevation is often more economical — especially on a tall or steep-roofed Tacoma house, where access rather than mortar is the expensive part.
The scope starts cutting into the structure. Tacoma's ordinary-repair exemption ends where a job starts removing structure: the City excludes cutting away a wall or any portion of one, and cutting or removing load-bearing support. Repacking joints and taking a section of stack down sit on opposite sides of that.

Replacement brick is its own problem on housing this old. Units are matched to the originals in physical properties as well as color, texture and size, and brick that will be wet and freezing has to meet the severe weathering grade — while an exact visual match to a century-old brick often is not obtainable at all. That is worth being told before the work starts rather than discovered on the scaffold.

Local considerations in Tacoma

About 26,200 of roughly 97,300 Tacoma housing units were built in 1939 or earlier and about 42,200 before 1960, so a large share of the city's chimneys are old enough that repointing mortar has to be matched to the existing masonry rather than bought off a shelf.
The in-city Tacoma station normals 27.2 nights a year at or below freezing but only 0.7 days that stay below freezing, so the damage pattern is roughly two dozen shallow thaw crossings rather than one sustained freeze.
Those crossings fall in the wettest months: 16.08 inches of precipitation in December through February against 2.80 inches in June through August, with 24.4 days a year carrying at least half an inch — masonry that is saturated when it cycles.
Repointing is exterior work and usually visible from the street, so in the North Slope, Old City Hall, Union Depot/Warehouse and Wedge historic special review districts the appearance of the joint can be a review matter; a project is exempt from Landmarks review if it needs no permit or involves no exterior work.
North Slope alone holds more than 950 properties and is described as one of the largest historic districts in the country, overlapping heavily with the pre-1940 brickwork most likely to need pointing.
Tacoma's exemption covers ordinary repairs but excludes removing structure — cutting away a wall or any part of one, and cutting or removing load-bearing support — which is the line a repointing scope crosses when a section has to come down.

What the job includes

A close look at the joints where access allows, including a light scrape to find where sound mortar begins, and a check of the crown, cap, flashing and roof drainage feeding them
A written scope and price before anything is opened up, naming the areas, the cut-back depth, the mortar type and the joint profile
Mortar matched equal to or lower in strength than the existing and at least as permeable as the brick, with laboratory analysis where the original mix cannot be judged by eye
Removal of deteriorated mortar to a uniform depth of at least twice the joint width, or deeper where sound mortar has not been reached, with head joints chiselled by hand rather than ground
Repacking in thin lifts, each left to thumbprint hardness, with the last tooled to match the original profile
Cut-out and replacement of individual broken or heavily spalled bricks, matched in physical properties as well as appearance, with the replacement shown to you first
A sample area repointed first on a visually sensitive chimney, and photographs of the same joints before and after from the same angles where practical

What it does not include

Permit applications or Landmarks Preservation Commission submissions. Those belong to you and City of Tacoma Planning and Development Services, and the scope is written so you can ask about both at once
Crown repair, flashing work and cap installation, which are separate scopes even when one of them is the water source behind the failed joints
Relining or any work inside the flue; repointing addresses the outside of the chimney only
Sweeping and creosote removal, which a masonry visit does not do — see chimney sweep
Water repellent, which only makes sense once the masonry is sound — see chimney waterproofing
Rebuilding a section, or work needing engineered design or seismic reinforcement — see chimney rebuild and restoration
Structural engineering. Where the signs point to movement rather than weathering, that assessment belongs to a structural engineer

What to look for

Mortar you can rake out of a joint with a house key: The binder has failed. It is the clearest case for repointing, and an open water path into a chimney that already cycles through freezing two dozen times a year.
Joints receded more than about a quarter inch behind the brick face: Past the industry's maintenance trigger. Not urgent on its own, but the joint is no longer shedding water the way it was built to.
Thin flakes of brick face on the ground or in the gutter: Spalling. The brick's outer wearing surface is coming off, usually from water inside the unit freezing — and on older, softer brick it spreads faster once it starts.
Mortar that is visibly harder and greyer than the rest, from an earlier patch: A previous repair used a stronger mix than the original. Look at the brick beside it: cracking or spalling concentrated around that patch is the usual result.
Dark patches on the chimney that never dry out between rains: The masonry is no longer completing its wet-and-dry cycle, which is the condition under which the local thaw cycling does its damage.
Stepped or diagonal cracking, cracks through several bricks, or a stack out of plumb: Movement rather than weathering. This calls for investigation before a repointing scope is written, and the work it points to may cross Tacoma's ordinary-repair boundary.

What changes the price

We do not publish a headline figure, because it would be a guess about your chimney. These are the things that genuinely move the number, and we put a real one in writing after we have looked.

How much of the chimney needs pointing: A few failed joints and an entire elevation are different jobs. Because access is a large fixed cost, a stack where a substantial share of joints have gone is often better done as one area than returned to in pieces.
Whether the existing mortar can be identified: On housing this old the chimney has often been patched before, and where the original mix cannot be judged by eye, laboratory analysis of samples comes before the mortar is specified.
Joint condition and how the old mortar comes out: Sandy, weathered mortar comes out quickly. Hard, high-cement mortar from an earlier repair has to be worked out by hand to protect the brick edges, and head joints are chiselled rather than ground either way.
Sourcing replacement brick: Matching a century-old unit in color, texture, size and physical properties takes real effort, and brick that will be wet and freezing has to meet the severe weathering grade.
Appearance requirements: A chimney where mortar color, sand and tooled profile have to be matched closely — and a sample area approved before the rest proceeds — carries more preparation than a chimney nobody looks at.
Access, height and roof pitch: A ladder-reachable stack, a steep pitch needing staging, and a chimney needing scaffolding are three different setups, and access frequently costs more than the mortar work.
Season and wall temperature: The National Park Service specifies wall temperatures generally between 40 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit so the water in the mortar neither freezes nor evaporates too fast. Between December and February that window is narrow here, and work placed in it needs protection measures.

Chimney Masonry Repair in Tacoma — common questions

My Tacoma house is from the 1920s. What mortar should go on the chimney?: One matched to what is already there rather than the strongest available. Repointing mortar must be equal to or lower in compressive strength than the mortar it replaces, and softer and more permeable than the brick, because the joints are meant to relieve movement stresses that a harder mix would drive into the units instead. Older brickwork is generally softer and more vapor-permeable than modern brick, and about 26,200 Tacoma housing units date from 1939 or earlier, so this comes up constantly here. Where the original mix cannot be judged by eye — likely if the chimney has been patched before — samples can go to a laboratory first.
Does repointing a chimney in Tacoma need a permit, or Landmarks approval in North Slope?: The two questions are linked. Tacoma treats ordinary repairs to structures as needing no application to its building official, and that exemption excludes removing structure: cutting away a wall or any part of one, cutting or removing load-bearing support, or changing a required means of egress. Separately, work on the outside of a contributing property that can be seen from the street in one of the four Tacoma Register historic special review districts goes through design review, with the Landmarks Preservation Commission issuing the Certificate of Approval — but a project needing no permit is exempt from it. Requirements change and depend on the property, so put both questions to Planning and Development Services before work starts.
The brick on my chimney is flaking. Would waterproofing stop it?: No, and the wrong product makes it worse. The National Park Service states that waterproofing brick or painting it with non-permeable paint accelerates decay by trapping moisture behind the coating, and the Brick Industry Association recommends against film-forming coatings on brickwork in freeze-thaw environments and says a water repellent is not a substitute for real repairs. Tacoma sees roughly two dozen crossings of the freezing point in a typical year, nearly all of them on nights that thaw again by day, so the masonry is cycling while wet — trapping that water behind a coating is exactly the wrong move. Vapor-permeable penetrating repellents come after the masonry is sound.
How do I tell whether my chimney needs repointing or a rebuilt section?: Deterioration confined to the joints — erosion past about a quarter inch, crumbling or voided mortar, hairline cracks along the joint, or mortar separating from the brick edge — is repointing territory. Damage in the units points the other way: the Brick Industry Association names cracks wider than about 2 mm, cracks through multiple bricks, stepped or diagonal cracking, widespread spalled brick and out-of-plane movement as conditions warranting investigation first. In Tacoma the practical follow-on is the permit boundary, because a scope that takes a section of stack down is no longer an ordinary repair.
When in the year should repointing be done in Tacoma?: In the drier, warmer part of it wherever the condition allows. The National Park Service specifies wall temperatures generally between 40 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit, so the water in the fresh mortar neither freezes nor evaporates too quickly. Locally that window is narrow: the wettest three months of the year carry close to six times the precipitation of the driest three, and most of the year's freezing nights fall inside them. Winter work is possible with protection measures, but if the chimney is stable the sensible move is to get the scope written early and place the work where the mortar can cure properly.

Sources

Tacoma's Historic Districts & Landmarks — City of Tacoma, Planning and Development Services. Accessed 2026-08-27.
What Requires a Permit (tip sheet index) — City of Tacoma, Planning and Development Services. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Tacoma, WA housing profile - ACS 2020-2024 5-year, tables B25034 and B25035 — Census Reporter (U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey). Accessed 2026-08-27.
U.S. Annual/Seasonal Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USC00458278 (Tacoma No. 1) — NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Accessed 2026-08-27.
Preservation Briefs 2: Repointing Mortar Joints in Historic Masonry Buildings — U.S. National Park Service, Heritage Preservation Services (Robert C. Mack, FAIA and John P. Speweik), October 1998, ISSN 0885-7016. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Common Problems with Brick Masonry — U.S. National Park Service (originally published 2008; page states last updated June 29, 2018). Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Notes on Brick Construction 2 - Glossary of Terms Relating to Brick Masonry — Brick Industry Association, February 2026. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Notes on Brick Construction 46 - Maintenance of Brick Masonry — Brick Industry Association, December 2017. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Notes on Brick Construction 8B - Mortars for Brickwork: Selection and Quality Assurance — Brick Industry Association, March 2020. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Notes on Brick Construction 9B - Manufacturing, Classification and Selection of Brick: Selection, Part 3 — Brick Industry Association. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Notes 6A - Colorless Coatings for Brick Masonry — Brick Industry Association. Accessed 2026-08-27.
Technical Note 7 - Water Penetration Resistance: Design and Detailing, November 2017 — Brick Industry Association. Accessed 2026-08-27.

Next step

Start with an inspection

Tell us what you have noticed. We will look at the chimney, show you what we found, and put a price on the work before anything begins.

Request an inspection Call (206) 573-4487