Is the chimney leaning?

We were asked by a Seaford, DE homeowner to look at a leaning chimney, the solutions that were given to him ranged from a complete tear down and rebuild, to a guy coming in a placing a bottle jack like you find at Napa under the footing to “jack up” the chimney.  The homeowners needed a permanent fix to this problem, so they spent days looking for a real foundation contractor.  They chose a local foundation contractor DryZone to come look at the issues that they were having.  

The appointment was set for the following week, and Bill Anderson co-owner of DryZone showed up to the home to perform his inspection.  Bill stated that he sees this type of problem a lot on Delmarva, “chimneys are a big problem” like this home the contractor who built the chimney did not even use straps to hold the structure to the home.  You see the top of the chimney started to lean away from the home; he was lucky that it did not topple over.  With the hurricane last fall and the earthquake we had, the home was in desperate need of repair. Bill determined that they would need two new helical piers that would have a heavy-duty bracket installed under the chimney.  Once this is performed, we can then lift and rotate the structure back to a level position.

The crew showed up Monday morning, they unloaded the excavator and got to work.  We first dig out around the footing and then had to prep it, the Forman then realized a major flaw in the construction, the footing was extremely narrow less than 6 inches. Within four hours, both helical piles were embedded to the appropriate pressure, and the lift can proceed.  The entire chimney made its assent to the roofline, and with a few pushes of the button on the hydraulic pumps, the chimney made its way back into position.  The homeowner was overjoyed that his entire home was now stable and with the twenty-five year warrantee that DryZone gave him he can sleep easy even during a hurricane.