Published prices
What chimney repair costs on the South Shore
Real ranges for Eastern Massachusetts, published so you can check any quote you are given — including ours. Most contractors will not put these online. We would rather you knew what normal looks like.
| Work | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney sweep and Level 1 inspection | $175–$350 | Standard annual service. Add a video scan and it becomes a Level 2. |
| Level 2 inspection with camera scan | $250–$500 | Required on property transfer, fuel or appliance change, and after a chimney fire. |
| Crown sealing (hairline cracks) | $150–$350 | Elastomeric sealer on a crown that is structurally sound. |
| Crown resurfacing | $350–$650 | Bonded repair compound over an eroded but present crown. |
| Full crown rebuild | $500–$1,200 | Break out and recast. More where staging is needed. |
| Spot repointing (top courses) | $300–$600 | The most common preventive repair, and the cheapest moment to intervene. |
| Full chimney repointing | $600–$1,800 | Varies with chimney height and size. Add $200–$400 for lime mortar on pre-1940 masonry. |
| Chimney cap, stainless single flue | $150–$450 | Multi-flue covers run $300–$900. |
| Top-sealing damper | $250–$550 | Not appropriate on gas or oil appliance flues. |
| Chimney waterproofing | $250–$600 | Two-storey residential chimney. Often bundled with repointing. |
| Flashing: caulk and re-seat counter flashing | $150–$400 | The cheap end of leak repair, where the flashing is basically sound. |
| Flashing: step flashing replacement | $400–$900 | New copper or aluminium interleaved with the shingle courses. |
| Full reflashing with a cricket | $800–$2,500 | Needed on wider chimneys where water pools behind the stack. |
| Stainless liner, gas appliance, single storey | $1,500–$2,800 | Sized to the appliance, not to the old tile. |
| Stainless liner, gas appliance, two storey | $2,200–$4,000 | Insulation wrap adds $300–$800. |
| Liner for oil or solid fuel | $2,500–$5,500 | Heavier alloy required for oil and coal. |
| Poured-in-place liner system | $3,000–$8,000 | For historically sensitive chimneys where a metal liner is unsuitable. |
| Partial rebuild, top 3–5 feet | $1,500–$4,000 | Where deterioration is confined above the roofline. |
| Full above-roofline rebuild | $3,000–$8,000 | The most common major chimney repair in Eastern Massachusetts. |
| Full rebuild from the footing | $8,000–$20,000+ | Rare, and usually the end point of years of deferred water damage. |
These are ranges, not quotes. Nobody can price a chimney accurately from the ground, and anyone who gives you a firm number over the phone without seeing it is guessing in a direction that favours them.
What actually moves the price
Access, more than anything else. A chimney you can reach from an extension ladder on flat ground costs one thing. The same chimney on a steep slate roof, or set back where the ladder cannot be footed safely, needs staging — and staging adds several hundred dollars before a single brick is touched. This is the single biggest reason two honest quotes for the same job can differ.
Height and flue count. A three-decker stack in Wollaston carrying four flues is a materially bigger job than a single-flue chimney on a cape in Hanover, and the crown work in particular scales with the number of liners it has to be formed around.
Mortar specification. Pre-1940 brick needs a softer, lime-based mortar matched to the original. It costs more and it is slower to work with, and using the cheap modern alternative on an old Quincy two-family will crack the brick faces off within a few winters. If a quote for an antique property does not mention mortar matching, that is worth a question.
What we find when we open it up. Occasionally a crown rebuild reveals that the top courses of brick beneath it have gone soft, and the job changes. We will stop, photograph it, and re-quote rather than continuing and presenting you with a bigger bill at the end.
The cheapest chimney work is the work you do early
This is the least commercially clever thing on this website and it is still true. Spot repointing the top few courses runs three to six hundred dollars. Left for five winters, that same chimney is frequently a partial rebuild at three to four thousand. The mechanism is not complicated: open joints let water into the core, the water freezes 80 to 110 times a year, and the brick faces come off.
An annual inspection is a hundred to two hundred dollars, and its real value is that it catches the cheap repairs while they are still the cheap repairs. We would genuinely rather sell you the small job now.
Questions about pricing
Why is the range on some of these so wide?
Because access dominates the price. The same crown rebuild is a straightforward half day on a single-storey ranch in Abington and a staged, roped, two-person job on a steep three-storey Victorian in Milton. Chimney height, roof pitch, whether a ladder is safe or scaffolding is required, and the number of flues all move the number more than the materials do. Materials are rarely the expensive part of chimney work; getting a person safely next to the problem is.
Is the cheapest quote usually a bad sign?
Not automatically, but a quote that is dramatically below the others is worth understanding rather than celebrating. The two common explanations are that they are quoting a different repair from everyone else — sealing a crown that the others said needs rebuilding, for instance — or that they have not actually been up on the roof. Ask what they propose to do, ask to see photographs of what they found, and compare like with like.
Should I get the work done in stages to spread the cost?
Sometimes, and we will tell you when the staging makes sense. What does not work is doing the cosmetic parts first. Water always has to be stopped at the top: crown, cap and flashing before repointing, repointing before waterproofing. Sealing the outside of a chimney that is taking water in at the crown traps the moisture and makes the freeze–thaw damage worse rather than better.
Does homeowners insurance cover any of this?
Generally it covers sudden and accidental damage — lightning, a fallen tree, storm damage — and generally excludes gradual deterioration, which is what most chimney decay is. If a specific storm caused specific damage, dated photographs and an inspection report give you something to claim on. Whether it is covered depends on your policy and your insurer, and we would not want to promise you either way.
Is it cheaper to just take the chimney down?
Occasionally, if it is genuinely redundant — no fireplace in use, heating appliance vented some other way. Removal has its own costs, including making good the roof and sometimes the structure below, and it permanently removes a feature that some buyers want. It is a real option for a decorative stack that has become a liability, and a poor one for a chimney that still vents an appliance.
Want a real number for your chimney?
Tell us what you are seeing and we will tell you what it is likely to be, what it will take to fix, and roughly what it should cost — before anyone climbs on your roof.
Prefer to talk it through? The phone is answered around the clock, by a person, including during storms.
We work across Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Milton, Hull, Cohasset, Scituate, Norwell, Marshfield and the rest of the South Shore.