Chimney Crown Repair Cost Calculator
The crown sheds water off the top of the stack. Price a sealed hairline crack or a full recast from your own material and labor numbers.
1 Enter your numbers
The crown sheds water off the top of the chimney; a cracked crown lets water into the masonry. Sealing a hairline crack is cheap, casting a new crown costs more — about $715 here. Enter your quoted material and labor.
The crown is the sloped concrete or mortar wash on the very top of a masonry chimney — the part that throws rainwater clear of the brick below. It is small, it is out of sight, and it is the single most common place a chimney starts to fail. There are really two jobs hiding under “crown repair”, an order of magnitude apart in cost: sealing a hairline crack with a flexible crown coat, or demolishing and casting a new crown when it is crumbling or was never poured with a proper overhang and drip edge.
Crown work is quietly priced by size — a wide, multi-flue crown is more concrete, more forming and more labor than a small single-flue wash. And a crown repair rarely travels alone: if water already got in, budget to check the cap and the top course of brick while the mason is up there.
Formula
The crown total is the same job sum, scaled by how much crown there is:
total = (crown materials + labor + access) × (1 + contingency)
For a recast, materials scale with the crown’s square footage; for a seal, materials are just the coating. Enter whichever your quote reflects.
Worked example
A cracked crown on a modest single-flue chimney gets fully recast. The mason quotes $165 for concrete, bond coat and forms, $445 labor to demo and pour a ~7.5 ft² crown with a proper overhang, and $190 access. A 10% contingency covers a surprise bad brick course underneath:
(165 + 445 + 190) × 1.10 = 800 × 1.10 = $880
Had the crack been hairline, a flexible crown coat and an hour of labor would have come in far lower — the recast price is really the demolition and forming.
Seal or recast — how to tell, and what to check first
- Look at the crack width and the edges. Tight hairlines in an otherwise solid crown seal well. A crown that is spalling, has no overhang, or is cracked through wants a recast.
- Check for an overhang and drip edge. A proper crown projects past the brick and has a drip kerf so water falls clear. A flush crown pours water straight down the masonry and will keep causing leaks.
- Inspect the cap and top course together. If the crown failed, water has probably been working on the flue tile and the top bricks — cheaper to address in one visit.
- Do not confuse crown with cap. The crown is the concrete slab; the cap is the metal-and-mesh cover over the flue. You often need both.
Reference table
Labeled planning bands for crown work and the water-management jobs that usually ride with it:
| Masonry job | Typical planning band |
|---|---|
| Crown repair / replacement | $200–$3,500 |
| Chimney flashing repair | $200–$1,500 |
| Chimney cap install | $150–$600 |
These are labeled planning bands — a reality check on a written quote, never a price you should expect to pay. Chimney cost swings with roof access and scaffolding, chimney height, roof pitch, how far the damage runs and local labor. Enter the real figures from your itemized quote above, and get that quote from a CSIA-certified sweep and a licensed, insured mason.