Chimney sweep and repair in Kankakee, IL
Friendship Chimney Sweep is four miles up Route 50 from downtown Kankakee. We sweep, inspect and rebuild the oldest chimneys in the county, and we have been doing it for 29 years.
Chimneys in Kankakee: what we find
Kankakee is where our crew sees the widest range of chimneys in a single day. A morning job might be a 1900s four-square a few blocks from the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed B. Harley Bradley House in the Riverview Historic District, with a soft-brick chimney that has never had a liner and a smoke chamber of open corbeled brick. The afternoon might be a 1950s ranch on the west side near Kankakee High School with a clay-tile flue that has done fine for seventy years except for the crown, which cracked through in one of the last bad winters and has been feeding water onto the damper ever since.
The river neighborhoods and the two-flats north of the Kankakee County Courthouse are where relining comes up most. Unlined flues in homes that old were built for coal and soft-burning wood; a modern airtight stove or an insert pushed into them without a liner is a chimney fire waiting for the right night. On the newer east-side subdivisions and along the Kankakee Valley Park District riverfront the work shifts to prefab units, chase covers and dryer vents. Either way we come with the camera, because in Kankakee the inside of the flue is usually the story.
What we do for Kankakee homes
Every service we offer is available in Kankakee at the same published price as Bourbonnais, with no travel charge.
- Chimney sweeping
- Level 1 and Level 2 inspections
- Masonry repair — tuckpointing with lime-rich mortar matched to old soft brick
- Stainless relining — the most common Kankakee recommendation on pre-1940 homes
- Caps, crowns and dampers
- Gas fireplace tune-ups
- Dryer vent cleaning
Why old soft brick needs the right mortar
Brick made before about 1930 was fired at lower and less even temperatures than modern brick, so it is softer and more porous. The lime mortar it was laid with is softer still, and that is the point: in a masonry wall the mortar is meant to be the sacrificial part. It flexes with temperature and moisture, and when it fails you repoint it, which is cheap. When a repair crew fills those joints with a hard, high-Portland Type S mortar, the joint becomes stronger than the brick around it. The next freeze-thaw cycle has to go somewhere, and it goes into the brick face, which spalls off. We see this on Kankakee chimneys that were “fixed” ten or fifteen years ago: crisp grey joints and crumbling red brick between them.
Our rule for a Kankakee chimney is simple. On anything built before about 1940 we repoint with a Type N or a lime-rich Type O mix depending on how soft the brick tests, we rake the joints to a proper depth so the new mortar has something to hold, and we match the joint profile so the repair disappears. Above the roofline where the weather is hardest we may step up one grade, but never to a mortar harder than the brick. It costs the same, it takes a little more care, and it is the difference between a chimney that lasts another fifty years and one that needs rebuilding in ten.
Local links for Kankakee
Kankakee resources we point customers to: Kankakee High School
Questions from Kankakee homeowners
Do you work in the Riverview Historic District?
Yes, regularly. Historic homes there often have unlined or soft-brick chimneys, and we match mortar and brick so repairs do not show.
How fast can you get to Kankakee?
Usually within one to three days; it is four miles from our shop, so same-day is common for urgent problems.
My Kankakee house was built in 1915. Is the chimney safe to use?
Not without a camera inspection. Pre-1940 flues were built for coal and are often unlined. A Level 2 inspection tells you whether it needs a liner before you burn.
Do you reline chimneys for gas furnaces in older Kankakee homes?
Yes, with AL29-4C stainless liners sized to the appliance. An oversized old masonry flue serving a modern furnace is a common carbon monoxide risk here.
Can you fix a chimney that another company said must be torn down?
We will camera-inspect it and show you what we see. Sometimes a partial rebuild from the roofline is enough; sometimes the first company was right. Either way you get the evidence.
Do you serve the two-flats and rentals in Kankakee?
Yes. Landlords use us for annual inspections and for documenting flue condition between tenants.
Is there a travel charge for Kankakee?
No. Same published pricing as Bourbonnais.
Do you clean wood stove flues in Kankakee?
Yes, including pulling and resetting inserts to reach the liner.
Kankakee chimneys are old. Call before the first fire.
Call and you will talk to a person who can put you on the schedule today.
Call (815) 449-4264