Repointing your chimney is important when needed because water usually gets in through cracked mortar. Pointing is intended to bond bricks together in a watertight way. So, when it fails to do that, re-pointing is necessary. The only sense in which “tuckpointing” is “repointing” is its regional usage to mean the latter.
“Tuckpointing” is technically a different thing and changes financial equations, but it IS re-pointing in a regional sense. When your chase is “tuckpointed”, its re-pointing involves re-tucking and it is, therefore, more time-consuming and labor-intensive. As a result, it is always a good idea to be sure you and your chimney professional are talking about the same thing.
Whatever you both end up calling it, you might need to repoint your chimney to ensure its water-tightness. It better positions your chimney to keep out the snow it picks up… but is much more complicated than ‘repointing’ your dish! We cannot stress enough the importance of letting skilled, experienced, certified professionals handle vital chimney re-pointing.
Nothing is more important to the safe use of your fireplace system than keeping water out of it. Once water gets into a masonry chimney, it steadily gets worse and so do the problems it causes. Masonry mortars – pointedly speaking –are the ties that bind. When they start to fray, the bond weakens and over time, cracks in relationships become ever-widening gaps.
Keeping your chimney together is the point of repointing. It is important, therefore, for the mortar used to match the original as closely as possible. This is not just about color choices, as the proportions in which the mortar’s components are mixed need to be right. Mistakes that result in too much compressive strength cause spalling of the bricks themselves.
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