Masons call the top of every stack its crown, and in the Queen City that had better mean something. From streetcar-suburb four-squares to lake-country new builds, we sweep, mend, cap and rebuild to a single standard — the crown one — with plain prices and a live voice on the line six days a week.
A register only means something when every entry is real. These eight are: performed by our crew, priced by our office, and answered for under our name.
Rotary lines and rods matched to the flue, worked until the liner shows its own surface the whole height — then damper, shelf and throat finished by hand before the court adjourns.
The whole chimney granted its audience — base to crown, inside and out — at a price fixed by decree at zero. The camera attends whenever a sale or a lingering doubt requires pictures in evidence.
A stack past saving is taken down to the last course with a claim to the title, then raised again — bedded full, checked plumb at every lift, and crowned at the top the way the word intends.
Tired joints cut back to a clean seat and refilled with mortar mixed for that wall's era — gentle lime blends for the streetcar suburbs, firmer mixes for postwar brick — struck so the repair goes unnoticed.
A coronation, properly done: stainless or stone, measured to the flue, seated dead level and anchored to hold its throne through storm season. Rain, squirrels and chimney swifts are hereby exiled.
Water enters at the borders — flashing, crown edge, cap seat — and surfaces wherever it pleases. We redraw the border properly, metal let into the joints rather than smeared over them, and the leak is banished for good.
Cracked tile and unlined flues get one continuous stainless liner run the full descent — a single length from crown to appliance, sized to what it serves, insulated where the code holds court.
The hearth is where the household holds court, and it gets royal treatment: spalled firebrick relaid in refractory bed, smoke chambers parged for a certain draw, dampers freed and inserts seated square.
No chimney gives up its crown without warning. It sends word first — seven omens, all readable from the ground — and the owner who heeds them pays for a mend instead of a monarchy.
Due process, every time: the petition, the Look, the decree, the seal. No step skipped and none invented along the way.
Call any day but Sunday, seven to seven. A tradesman hears the trouble and sets your audience while you're on the line.
The full inspection at zero charge, ruled on plainly at your door — no scare stories, no ceremony.
Every mend priced on its own line, urgent ruled apart from optional, all of it in writing. Decrees don't drift.
The work done to the crown standard, the site left spotless, and the guarantee under seal — on paper, in your hand.
When the first real chill crosses the county line, the chimneys already seen this fall light up without a moment's doubt. One call, any day but Sunday, and yours joins them — the Look, as decreed, is free.
(704) 317-5367Recent entries from around the realm — flues swept, crowns set, flashing redrawn and courses renewed, Uptown to the lake towns.
The office keeps court on Old Statesville Rd, north of Uptown; the trucks ride the whole county and the towns past its line.
Your corner of the realm not named? Call (704) 317-5367 — the trucks ride further than the list.
It means the number on the ruling is zero, and zero it stays. The Queen's Look calls the firebox to account with its damper and throat, reviews the flue along its entire height, and finishes up top — crown, cap, flashing and each open-air course — with the mason handing down the verdict at your door in words that need no interpreter. No audience fee, no fine-print tax, no bill arriving by post. One page in this court carries a price: the court record, the Look's findings set in type with photographs, $149, drawn up only at your request.
Sundays the court adjourns and the crews go home to their own hearths. Monday through Saturday a tradesman holds the line himself, from seven in the morning until seven in the evening — a longer sitting of live answering than most in this trade will keep. A Sunday message goes to the recorder and is heard first thing Monday, in the order it arrived. One law stands above the calendar: flames where they have no business, or the faintest hint of carbon monoxide, and the household steps out to the yard while 911 takes the first call — ours keeps until the second, any day of the week.
It can, if the repair bows to the brick and not the other way around. The streetcar suburbs — Dilworth, Elizabeth, the older streets of Myers Park — were laid up in softer brick with lime mortar that was meant to flex, breathe and sacrifice itself first. A hard modern mix in those joints turns the wall into a fight the brick loses, one spalled face at a time. Our practice on century houses is old-school courtesy: lime-rich mortar gauged to the original, joints raked out gently rather than ground wide, and color matched until the repair holds its tongue.
It's moving, which around here is not the same as falling — yet. Charlotte sits on red Piedmont clay that swells with every wet spell and shrinks hard in drought, and a chimney rides its own footing outside the house's foundation. When the clay moves the two out of step, the chimney leans away and a gap opens at the seam. Small and stable can often be monitored, flashed and sealed; growing, stair-stepped cracking, or a lean you can sight from the curb calls for a footing evaluation before anything cosmetic. The free Look reads which one you have, and the ruling comes with no charge attached either way.
One sweeping for every season it worked, taken in spring when the fires end or in fall before they return. A flue that stood open and idle through the long warm months should be looked at before its first fire regardless — Carolina wildlife treats an uncapped chimney as an invitation with the door held open. Gas and oil heating flues keep a separate annual appointment of their own; their deposits are acidic, silent and out of sight, and they are always further along than anyone expected.
Tell the person who answers that a closing hangs on it and your file goes to the head of the docket. The free Look is heard within days, the disputed flue gets the camera so both sides argue over pictures instead of memories, and the $149 court record — typed, photographs attached — is delivered comfortably ahead of your date. Attorneys, lenders and inspectors accept an entered record far more readily than anyone's recollection, which is precisely why the record exists.
The crown's own — meaning ours, on our payroll, never a crew hired for the week and dressed in our name. Every man was vetted before his first day and works under the firm's liability and workers'-compensation cover for every minute he is on your grounds. Request it at booking and the certificate of insurance arrives ahead of the appointment, so you've read the paper before anyone unloads a ladder.
Not in this kingdom. The route from door to hearth is covered before anything else happens, the fireplace opening is sealed ahead of the first rod, and the filtered vacuum holds its post from the opening pass to the last, taking the soot the instant the brush frees it. The typical sweeping is finished within the hour, the soot departs inside the machine, and the room is returned to you as found — swept, sealed and without a trace of our visit beyond the paperwork.
No forms, no phone maze, no waiting for a herald. The tradesman who answers can weigh the trouble from your telling, rule on an honest range, and seat your appointment before the call ends.
The smell after last weekend's fire, the grit on the hearth, the gap you can see daylight through — one plain telling. You'll hang up with a ruling: visit or no visit, which day, and an honest range that holds.
(704) 317-5367 Tap to Call NowA person answers, Mon–Sat, 7 to 7
Twelve hours a day, six days a week — never a menu