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The same chimney crack 'coming back' every spring?
- A repaired crack that reopens after each winter
- Caulk and patch repairs that last one season
- Sixty-degree temperature swings inside a week
Why it happens in Indiana: Indiana winters swing rather than settle, and the freeze-thaw engine runs hard on the swings. Masonry damage lands all at once in spring. The smart inspection here is the post-thaw one in March, before winter's damage takes a summer of rain.
What fixes it, and what it costs
Whiplash weather runs the freeze-thaw engine on fast-forward and defeats flexible patches first: the crack never left, it just moves with the seasons. The repair that holds is the structural one: joints raked and repointed with matched mortar, crowns recast rather than caulked, done in a settled stretch of weather so the cure completes before the next swing.
- One accessible face
- $400–$1,200
- Full stack, four faces
- $1,500–$4,000
