In 1873 this town voted to stay a town — and its brickwork has carried itself accordingly ever since. Estate chimneys with six flues, carriage houses, tall Victorians under slate, the great apartment blocks of Beacon Street: we sweep, repoint and rebuild them to the standard they were laid to, and the phone is attended whatever the hour.
A good groundskeeper never waits to be asked twice, and neither does this list. Everything a Brookline chimney can need — from the carriage house to the twelfth-floor flue on Beacon — handled by one crew that answers its own phone.
The parlor hearth, the study, the third-floor bedroom nobody lights — each passage gets its own brush, its own reading, and its own line in our notes, in one unhurried visit.
The whole system surveyed for nothing, the way the estate gardener once walked the beds each morning — because problems found small stay small. Camera footage available when a matter needs proving.
A stack that has bowed past mending comes down with care and rises again course-true — the reclaimed brick saved where it's sound, the new blended in, the whole crowned to shed a century of rain.
Estate-era mortar was a soft, breathing thing, and renewing it calls for the same. Failed joints are cleared to firm ground and refilled with a blend the old brick can live beside, struck to vanish into the wall.
Racoons, red squirrels, nor'easter rain and the odd tennis ball all agree the open flue is an invitation. A fitted stainless lid with tight screening — single flue or the whole estate top — withdraws it politely.
Water is patient and slate hides its tracks well. We follow the stain uphill through crown, seat, flashing and joint until the true doorway shows, close that one for good, and leave the guesswork out of it.
Behind Brookline's handsome walls run flues older than the light bulb. Each one gets its own continuous stainless run, sized to the appliance it serves — the parlor's, the furnace's, the carriage house's alike.
A century of Novembers wears the box where the fire sits. We relay it in refractory brick, render the smoke chamber for a clean pull, and set stoves and inserts square to mantels that deserve the respect.
Brick speaks plainly to anyone who reads it on a schedule. These seven remarks deserve a reply within the month.
Four gates, each one opened before the next: the call, the walk, the figures, the craft.
Whatever the hour reads, a person answers who knows chimneys. Describe the property; a visit gets set to suit your calendar.
The full survey — hearth to cap, gratis, unrushed — closed out face to face in plain language, not trade jargon.
Whatever needs doing arrives itemized, each line priced, the pressing separated from the postponable. The numbers keep their word.
The work done as the original masons intended, the grounds left immaculate, the warranty in writing — and the phone still there after.
Olmsted gave this town its greenery on the theory that beauty needs tending. The first cold night proves the same of hearths — and the households already in our book light theirs without a thought.
(857) 666-8115Brushes, crowns, lids and renewed joints, noted ward by ward the way a groundskeeper keeps his book.
The desk sits over Beacon at Coolidge Corner; the trucks cover every ward from the Village to the Chestnut Hill line.
On a street between wards? Call (857) 666-8115 — if the truck can reach it, it's ours.
All of it. The grounds walk takes in the hearth, damper, smoke chamber, every flue end to end, then the crown, cap, flashing and standing brick outside — and it closes with the tech giving you the verdict face to face. No invoice follows, and no sales script either. The single billable item on top is the write-up: the walk's findings composed formally with photographs, $149, drafted only when you order it.
Then you call — the line is attended at every hour of every day, holidays included, and the person answering can talk a jammed damper through by phone or send the truck when it's warranted. Same for storm-lost caps and midnight burning smells. One exception outranks us: visible flame where it doesn't belong, or any suspicion of carbon monoxide, means the household leaves first and 911 gets the first call.
Gladly — the big brick apartment blocks along Beacon and Harvard are half this town's chimney stock. We survey the shared stacks flue by flue, mark which serves which unit, and hand the association one organized picture with per-flue findings, so trustees can vote on facts rather than a plumber's rumor. Common-area work gets scheduled around residents, not the other way about.
One appointment. Properties from Brookline's estate era commonly hide five or six passages across the main house and outbuildings, each in its own state of age. We walk them all in a single scheduled visit, treat each hearth and flue on its own merits, and leave you one coherent picture of the whole property instead of a shoebox of separate opinions.
Reckon by burning, not by calendar sentiment: a hearth that worked through a Boston-basin winter has earned its cleaning, and any flue that stood idle since spring deserves a look before flames return to it. Heating flues for oil or gas equipment keep their own annual rhythm — trouble there creeps in as acid and fume, quietly, which is precisely why it gets missed.
Quick — a signed purchase agreement moves you to the front of the book. The gratis walk happens within a few days, a camera run gathers footage where the negotiation demands it, and the $149 write-up with photographs follows one business day after you request it, laid out so each side of the table finds its answer without a phone call to us.
Ours and ours. Every tech is on this firm's payroll, vetted before ever wearing the shirt, and works under our full liability and workers' compensation coverage — a current certificate goes to your email on request, before the appointment. Slate, copper and tile get walked with proper protection, or worked from ladders and staging instead.
It rides home with us — all of it. Drop cloths go down first, the fireplace mouth is closed off with a sealed shroud, and an industrial filter vacuum runs for the duration of the sweep, which for most hearths is under an hour. Your parlor's only souvenir is a chimney that draws the way it did when the house was young.
No web forms, no hold music with apologies. Whoever answers can grade a flue by your description, sketch a price range, and put you in the book — at four in the afternoon or four in the morning.
Name the ward, the vintage of the house, and what the chimney has been muttering about — you'll come away knowing whether it wants a visit, when the truck can call, and what the remedy is likely to run.
(857) 666-8115 Tap — the Desk Is AwakeKept at every hour, every day of the year
Estates kept night porters; this desk keeps the custom