Lexington's chimneys run from 1700s center-stack colonials to last decade's gas inserts, and no single trick serves them all. What serves them is judgment — lime mortar where the old brick wants it, stainless where the codes demand it, and an honest reading before any work is proposed. Ring the line and a mason answers it himself, weekdays to seven and Saturday till four.
No post on this list is hired out or handed off. The crew that musters under this name does the work, at terms you read before anyone climbs, and answers for it afterward.
Rotary line or rods by the flue's own condition, worked until the camera certifies clean passage — then the smoke shelf and damper done by hand, because the last pass is the one that counts.
Every element called to account — masonry, flue, crown, cap, flashing — and each answering for its condition. The review costs not a farthing, and the camera falls in whenever proof is wanted.
When a stack is past saving above the roofline, it comes down to brick still fit for duty and goes back up in full beds and true courses, crowned to shed two centuries' more weather if asked.
Antique brick fails fastest under modern mortar, so ours is mixed to the house's era — lime-rich and forgiving for the old stacks, harder where the wall was born harder — and struck to match the original hand.
A flue without a cap takes whatever a New England sky sends — rain, sleet, squirrels and the odd nor'easter shingle. A screened stainless cap, seated on a sound crown and fastened, stands the watch instead.
The roof-to-brick joint is where most houses are breached, and caulk is a parley, not a defense. We find the true crossing, then set stepped and counter flashing into the masonry so the line actually holds.
Half this town's older flues were built bare — brick and parging, no tile at all. A one-piece stainless liner, sized right and insulated to clearance, brings an eighteenth-century stack up to this century's safety.
The hearth did this town's cooking, heating and politicking for two centuries; ours get kept to that standard — firebrick rebedded true, the smoke chamber faired for draw, the damper freed to a quiet swing.
The whole point of a signal is reading it in time. These are the seven your chimney will hang in the belfry before anything serious rides in.
Militias drilled until the sequence was second nature, and so has this crew. No step gets skipped, and no figure appears that wasn't announced.
A mason answers weekdays 7 to 7 and Saturday 8 to 4. Report what you've seen and claim a day that suits.
The full review at no levy, with every finding reported to your face in plain parade-ground English.
Repairs listed singly, urgent divided from advisable, each with a figure that holds from posting to invoice.
The work done to the town standard, the ground policed spotless, and the warranty delivered in writing.
The first real cold reaches Middlesex County overnight, every year, on no particular date. The households that mustered their flues in the fall just light the fire and get on with it. One call books yours — and the muster still levies not a farthing.
(781) 778-8605Recent entries — flues certified clean, colonial joints renewed, caps posted sentry and hearths brought back to warmth across the battle-road towns.
The company keeps its quarters on Bedford St above the Center; the rounds cover Lexington's hills and the towns the alarm riders reached first.
Past the alarm routes? Call (781) 778-8605 — the riders range beyond the printed towns.
Truly, and it covers the lot. The mason starts at the firebox — throat, damper, surround — follows the flue its entire run, then moves to the weather face — crown, cap, flashing, and every course of brick standing out in a New England year. Draft is tested; creosote is graded; anything doubtful gets a second look rather than a guess. You hear it all face to face before the truck leaves, and the levy for that is zero. The only paid article in the house is the captain's dispatch — the muster set down formally with photographs and a figure beside each repair, $149 — and it gets written only when you ask for it. Decline it and the visit closes at nothing owed, as advertised.
The recorder stands the watch, and we say so plainly rather than let the ring mislead you. A mason holds this line weekdays from 7 to 7 and Saturdays from 8 to 4; messages left after Saturday's stand-down or on Sunday get the first calls when Monday opens. One alarm outranks every schedule: flame where it shouldn't be, or any whisper of carbon monoxide, and the drill is fixed — muster everyone outside first and raise 911 before any other call. Ours keeps until the danger is past.
They're the reason to work in this town. A center-chimney colonial carries the whole house around one great stack — sometimes five flues, a beehive oven and three fireplaces sharing a single mass of brick that's been settling since before the Revolution. Those stacks want a particular hand: lime-rich mortar that moves the way the original did, flues treated one at a time on their own condition, and a deep suspicion of anyone proposing to 'modernize' what mostly needs honest maintenance. Work in the historic districts also means matching what the street sees, and we build that into the plan rather than treating it as a surprise.
Common around here, and worth taking seriously without panic. Houses built before the early 1900s often run bare brick flues — no clay tile, just parged mortar that a century of fires and frosts has been quietly eating. The risk is simple: gaps in old mortar joints can let heat and gas reach framing that was built tight against the stack. The remedy is well established — a stainless liner sized to the fireplace or appliance, run the full height in one piece, insulated where the clearances call for it — and it preserves the look of the chimney entirely. The muster will tell you honestly whether yours is a this-season job or a keep-an-eye job; plenty are the second kind.
Once each burning season for a fireplace in regular use — and the season here is long enough to earn it. Book after the final fire of spring or early in the fall before the calendar crowds; either serves, provided it happens every year. A flue idle since spring deserves eyes before the first match regardless, because capless or quiet chimneys collect squirrels, starlings and doubt. Oil and gas heating flues want a yearly visit of their own — what gathers in them is corrosive, shows nothing at the hearth, and runs ahead of every estimate.
Yes — this is the most scheduled-around emergency we handle. The free muster goes on the books within days; a camera run settles any point the inspector could only see from the yard; and when the table needs paper, the $149 captain's dispatch arrives before your deadline with findings, photographs and per-repair figures. Around Lexington, where half the disputed chimneys are older than the republic, a specific number from someone who actually climbed the thing tends to end the argument.
Our own crew, mustered from our own payroll — no labor borrowed by the weekend, no stranger introduced at your door. Every man passed a background check before his first roll call, and both of the firm's policies — general liability and workers' comp — stand behind every visit. Say the word at booking and the certificate of insurance travels out ahead of the ladder. Any outfit that bristles at that request has told you what you needed to know.
Not under this flag. Runners cover the path from the door, the fireplace opening is sealed behind sheeting, and a HEPA-filtered vacuum holds suction on the flue every minute a brush is working — the soot musters into the canister and nowhere else. An ordinary flue runs about an hour. When we stand down, the parlor should look untouched and the chimney should draw like it finally remembered how.
No forms and no dispatch desk between you and an answer. The man on this line can read a job from your telling of it, give a range that survives to the invoice, and enter your date on the roll before you hang up.
The smoke that fell back into the parlor, the grit collecting on the hearthstone, the streak widening below the roof — report it the way you'd report any sighting: what, where, since when. You'll get a reading you can act on and a figure that won't desert you at invoice time.
(781) 778-8605 Tap to Call NowManned Mon–Fri 7–7, Sat 8–4
Sundays the recorder watches; Monday rides out on your word