Gable & Wick Chimney Restoration · Fenwick Quay · masonry first, always
We rebuild the chimney the bricklayer meant to leave you.
Gable & Wick restores quay chimneys from the roofline down — crowns poured with a drip edge, flues rebuilt brick-for-brick in matched period stock, rigid 316Ti relines only where the camera says the clay cannot be saved. Every job starts on film and ends with a draw test, and the two masons who quote are the two masons who point.
The yard
A restoration yard, not a sweep van
The yard sits behind the old ropery on the quay: two masons, one sweep, a band saw for cutting matched brick, and a wall of lime bins graded to a century of quay mortar. We take the chimneys other firms quote for replacing — the listing ones, the stubborn ones, the ones with a date carved in the crown — and put them back the way they started, with modern flue liners hidden inside where the footage insists.
Services
What the yard does
01
Crown rebuilds — from $680
The crown is the only part of a chimney designed to shed water, and on most quay houses it has been drinking it for decades. We chip back to sound masonry, set a proper drip edge, and pour a crown that throws water clear of the brick instead of into it.
02
Flue rebuilds & relines
Above the roofline we rebuild in brick matched to the period — bond, colour and joint profile — and inside, where the camera shows cracked clay beyond saving, we drop insulated rigid 316Ti stainless one section at a time and draw-test the finished assembly before the first fire.
03
Tuckpoint & spalled brick
Joints ground out to sound mortar and re-pointed in a mix matched to the original lime content, spalled faces cut out and replaced from reclaimed stock. The point of matching is that you should not be able to find our work from the street — only the weather can, and it loses.
04
Dampers, caps & chambers
Throat damper plates freed, re-hinged and seated; top-sealing dampers fitted where the plate is past saving; smoke chambers parged smooth with insulating castable so the draft pulls instead of stumbles. The quiet work that makes the loud work unnecessary.
Damper & cap work
Damper plate, re-seated$140
Cleaned, freed, seated flat — handle replaced where gone
Cast-iron throat damper, fitted$420
New assembly in the existing firebox throat
Top-sealing damper$680
Closes at the chimney top, stainless cap included
Stainless mesh capfrom $210
Fitted and screwed down — never wired on
Chamber pargingfrom $890
Corbelled brick smoothed with insulating castable
Draw test$0
Smoke pencil and manometer, before and after — with any visit
The plate, honestly
Nine quay houses in ten burn beneath a damper that no longer closes — rusted open, handle missing, plate seized above the firebox where nobody looks. It is a hole the size of a dinner plate in the living-room ceiling, all winter, and the reason July smells of last February. It is also a day’s work, priced on this card, and it changes the room more than anything else we sell.
The method
A rebuild, in five passes
The same sequence on every chimney, from the scout scan to the smoke test — the only variable is how much of the wall the freeze-thaw has claimed.
The scan
Level 2 camera down every foot, roof and firebox photographed, mortar sampled. The rebuild is scoped from the footage, line by line, before a scaffold goes up.
The scaffold
Runners on the flowerbeds, a tied and sheeted tower, neighbours’ cars warned. Masonry work above a quay street is logistics as much as trowel-work.
The point
Joints ground, spalled faces cut out, brick matched from the reclaim wall, everything re-pointed in the lime the house was built with.
The pour
Crown chipped to sound masonry, drip edge set, new crown poured and cured under sheeting — the weather never sees it green.
The test
Liner terminated if the scan called for one, cap fitted, smoke pencil and manometer out, and the readings written on the handover sheet.
Fenwick Quay, 2025 — 2026
Quay chimneys, roof level
Six restorations from the last year, photographed off the scaffold. Rebuilds, crowns and re-points — the aim is that the street cannot spot which is ours.
Thirty-eight seasons at the trowel, between us
The quay count
The listing officer wanted the chimney restored, not replaced, and three firms declined to quote. Gable & Wick matched the brick from a reclaim yard two counties off, and the crown carries the original 1904 date stone reset into it. The officer’s note said “indistinguishable”, which around here is a medal.
Their scan showed a flue with a decade left in it under two cracked tiles at the thimble. Tiles out, insulated stainless through that run only, matched pointing above the roofline — a third of the full-reline quote from the outfit before them, and it draws like a train.
Two masons and a sweep, and the same three people who quoted did the work. The damper plate they re-seated has done more for the room than the new stove did. Runner everywhere, scaffold tied and sheeted, and the flowerbeds survived us.
Quay questions
The five the yard phone answers most weeks. Anything stranger, bring the old paperwork to the yard on a Saturday.
Rebuild or reline — how do you decide?
The camera decides, and you watch it. If the clay is sound, we sweep and point and leave it be. If the cracks are localized, a partial stainless run through the damaged section often does. A full rebuild is for masonry the freeze-thaw has genuinely won — and on the quay that is rarer than the reline quotes going around suggest.
Can you match hundred-year-old brick?
That is half the yard: a reclaim wall built up over decades, a band saw for dressings, and lime bins graded to the mortar a given decade used. From the street the aim is that you cannot find our patches — only the weather can, and it loses.
Why a drip edge on the crown?
Because a flat crown ponds water against the flue tile and feeds it down the brickwork every frost. A turned drip edge throws the water clear of the wall face. It is one wooden profile’s worth of extra care at the pour, and it is the difference between a crown that lasts decades and one that lasts winters.
Will the scaffold be there all month?
A crown-and-point runs days, not weeks — scaffold up and down inside the week in fair weather. Full rebuilds above the roofline run two to three. The schedule is written into the quote with the weather clause: the date moves, the number does not.
Do you do the sweeping as well?
The yard sweep brushes, grades and cards every flue we restore — free at the handover and every season while the guarantee runs. After that it goes on the ordinary card, because a restored chimney still creosotes like any other.
The insurance wanted the whole stack taken down after the frost heave — the quote was five figures and a skip on the pavement for a month. Gable & Wick scanned it, found the damage stopped a metre below the top, rebuilt that metre in matched stock and poured the crown new with the date stone reset. The adjuster signed off on their photographs. Total was a fifth of the demolition quote, and the street kept its skyline.
Restoration quotes from scan footage, Saturdays at the yard · (555) 043-7108 · yard@gableandwick.example
Bring us the chimney nobody will restore
Tell us the street, the era, and what the last firm said it needed — old reports and photographs welcome, we read them all. Every quote starts from a Level 2 scan so the price is for the flue you actually have. yard@gableandwick.example