Business Idea Center:
Chimney Repairs

Business Overview

Providing you have basic masonry skills and experience, starting a chimney repair service can be a very profitable business to own and operate. Brick and stone chimneys all require maintenance in order to stay structurally sound and perform to their design specifications. The best types of chimney repairs to focus on are repairing or replacing damaged rain pots, rebuilding crowns, installing new base and counter flashing, and repointing and sealing brick and stone chimneys. The tools and equipment necessary for repairing chimneys are also very basic and include ladders, roof jacks, stone chisels, and a few hand tools. Providing you already have a vehicle, the business can easily be started for less than $1,000. Chimney repair services can be marketed to homeowners by designing and distributing door hangers and fliers describing your service. Or you can work as a subcontractor providing roofing companies and home renovation contractors with chimney repair services for their clients. The raw and manufactured materials required for chimney repairs are extremely inexpensive and available at most building centers. Visiting used building material yards can supply you with all the old and various colored bricks that will occasionally be required to replace broken or missing bricks while repairing profitable business to operate. There should be no problem in maintaining a billing rate of $50 per hour to provide chimney repairs, as well as a markup of at least 50 percent on all the material required for the chimney repair.