Greensboro's mills taught the whole country what a tight weave looks like, and good masonry works the same way — every course a pick of the shuttle, every joint a stitch that has to hold. From the mill-village brick of the old blocks to the newest builds off the loop, we sweep, mend and rebuild to that standard, with a live voice on the phone six days a week.
A mill posted its patterns at the gate so every hand knew the work of the day. Ours are posted here — eight of them, all run by our own crew, none jobbed out to strangers.
A season's soot comes off the way carded cotton gives up its burrs — worked loose pass after pass until the flue reads clean its whole length, with the damper, shelf and throat finished by hand.
The full bolt inspected against the light — base to cap, inside and out — for not one thin dime. The flue camera joins the inspection whenever a sale or a nagging doubt wants it on film.
When a stack has frayed past mending, we unpick it — down to the first course still holding fast, never further — then weave it back up plumb and true, crowned to shed whatever the Piedmont throws.
Joints are a wall's stitching, and we restitch them one at a time: the failed mortar cut to a clean seat, a blend gauged to the wall's age laid in, and each joint struck so the mend vanishes like a good darn.
The selvage is the edge that keeps cloth from unraveling, and a fitted cap does the same for a flue: stainless, screened, measured to the tile and seated square, so rain, squirrels and starlings stay in the weather where they belong.
Water always slips in at a seam — flashing, crown edge, cap seat — and shows itself somewhere else entirely. We trace the stain back to its true seam, mend that one properly, and the ceiling dries for good.
A liner is the warp of the whole system — one unbroken thread the rest depends on. We run a single continuous stainless length down the flue, sized to the appliance it serves and insulated where the code asks.
The hearth is where the household's evenings are woven, so it gets kept in repair like the loom it is: firebrick rebedded in refractory mortar, smoke chambers parged for a sure draw, dampers freed and inserts set square.
Cloth never tears without fraying first, and neither does masonry. Catch the loose thread and you mend a joint; ignore it and you reweave the bolt.
Every job runs the same weave, in the same order, with nothing skipped between the first ring and the last broom.
Six days a week, seven to seven, a tradesman answers. Say what the chimney has been doing and take a slot that suits the house.
The whole cloth inspected for nothing, and the verdict given plainly in the yard — what holds, what frays, what waits.
Every mend priced on its own ticket line, urgent marked apart from optional. The ticket price is the final price.
The work finished to pattern, the site swept clean behind the crew, and the guarantee handed over in writing.
Every fall the calendar runs the same race — first the gray fronts, then the first fires, then the holidays all at once. The chimneys inspected early burn easy through all three. One call, any day but Sunday, puts yours on the early list.
(336) 294-6971Recent lengths off the loom — flues combed, seams mended, caps seated and courses rewoven across the Gate City.
The shop sits on W Market out toward the airport; the trucks cover Greensboro's neighborhoods and the towns that ring it.
Your street not in the pattern? Call (336) 294-6971 — the weave runs wider than the list.
Honestly, and we mean the mill-town kind of honest. The look inspects the firebox with its damper and throat, the flue up its full length, and the top of the stack — crown, cap, flashing and the courses the weather has been working on — then finishes with the mason telling you plainly, in the yard, what holds and what is fraying. No visit charge, no inspection fee under another name, no invoice weeks later. One thing in the pattern book carries a price: the bound report, the look's findings in type beside their photographs, $149, woven only to order.
Sunday is the one day the mill whistle stays quiet: the crews are home, and the phone goes to the recorder. Every other day — Monday through Saturday, seven in the morning to seven at night — a tradesman answers live, which is a longer week than most in this business keep. Sunday messages get the first callbacks Monday at seven. And the rule that outranks the schedule: fire showing outside the firebox, or the barest suspicion of carbon monoxide, means the house empties to the yard and 911 gets rung before we ever cross your mind — a chimney can be mended any day, and that risk cannot wait for one.
Different, and worth respecting. The mill villages around Glenwood and the old textile blocks were built fast out of soft local brick laid in lime mortar — a wall designed to flex and breathe. Hit those joints with a hard modern portland mix and the mortar starts winning every argument with the brick, which spalls and sheds its faces along the repair. We repoint the mill-era walls with lime-rich blends gauged to the original, rake the joints instead of grinding them wide, and match color so the mend disappears into the wall the way a good darn disappears into cloth.
More than the snow that never comes. The Piedmont's specialty is the ice storm — rain that freezes as it lands — and a chimney takes it badly: water sits in every open joint and hairline crack, then freezes and pries; caps and screens carry a load of ice they were never sized for; and a branch off a loaded oak can take the cap or the crown corner with it on the way down. The cure is dull and effective — joints kept full, a crown that sheds, a cap anchored properly — all of which is precisely what the free look checks before the first gray front of the season.
Once per burning season is the working rule — book it when the fires stop in spring or before they start in fall. A fireplace that stood idle through the summer earns a check before it is lit again, because an open flue in leafy Greensboro collects nests the way a porch light collects moths. Gas and oil heating flues take their own separate annual visit; what builds in them is acidic, quiet and invisible from the hearth, and it never announces itself until the damage is well along.
Three weeks is room to spare. Tell us the house is under contract and the free look is scheduled within days; the flue in question gets the camera so both sides argue from the same pictures; and the $149 bound report comes back in type with its photographs well inside your window. Attorneys, lenders and inspectors settle down quickly when the answer arrives documented and bound instead of secondhand.
The crew is ours alone — hired by this firm, trained on this firm's jobs, never rented for the week. Every man was screened before his first day, and the company's liability and workers'-compensation policies cover him for every minute he spends on your property. Ask when you book, and the certificate of coverage comes over to you before the visit does, so the paper beats the ladder to your house.
None that stays. Cloths get spread along the whole working path, the fireplace opening is sealed tight before the first rod goes up, and the filtered vacuum runs from the first pass to the last, catching everything the brushes free. Most cleanings finish inside the hour, the soot leaves the house inside the machine, and the room is handed back exactly as we found it — that part is not negotiable with us.
No forms and no hold menu. The tradesman who picks up can weigh the trouble from your telling, quote an honest range, and set the visit while you're still on the line.
The smell after Friday night's fire, the crumbs in the firebox, the closing date the buyers circled — lay it out once, in your own words. You'll hang up with a yes or a no, a day, and a range that will still be true on the invoice.
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Seventy-two hours a week of a person, not a menu