The Des Plaines River runs through Gurnee and it shapes the chimney work here. Moisture load is the whole story on this side of Lake County.
Gurnee incorporated in 1928 but stayed small until Great America opened in 1976 and Gurnee Mills followed in 1991. The residential growth tracked those, which is why most Gurnee housing dates from the 1970s onward along Grand Avenue, Hunt Club Road, and Washington Street.
The Des Plaines River cuts through the village, and parts of Gurnee sit in or near its floodplain. Homes in those areas carry a higher ambient moisture load, and that accelerates every masonry failure mode we deal with. Saturated brick going into a hard freeze is what breaks chimneys.
Away from the river the stock is standard late-century suburban construction, with a heavy share of framed chases and prefabricated flues in the subdivisions built after the mid 1980s.
Each architectural period in Gurnee has predictable chimney failure modes after enough decades of weather. Here is what to look for.
The older Gurnee homes have conventional exterior chimneys that are now well past the 50 year mark. In the lower-lying neighborhoods these show spalling rather than simple joint erosion, because the brick has been absorbing and freezing water for decades. Spalled brick has to be replaced, not repointed.
The bulk of Gurnee housing. Crowns from this period were commonly poured flat and thin, without an overhang to throw water clear of the brick. That single detail is responsible for a large share of the crown cracking and top-of-stack water entry we find here.
Very common in Gurnee's later subdivisions. In a higher-humidity area a rusting chase cover fails sooner than the same cover would inland. We see cover rot here at closer to 15 years than the 20 to 25 that is typical elsewhere in Lake County.
In Gurnee the deciding factor is usually how much water the masonry has absorbed over the years. Near the Des Plaines River that pushes more chimneys toward replacement than it would inland, because saturated brick that freezes repeatedly breaks from the inside.
The full chimney, fireplace, and commercial service catalog, dispatched from our Park Ridge office to Gurnee addresses.
USDA Zone 6a; inland Lake County climate with 30 to 40 freeze-thaw cycles per winter.
Gurnee, IL
View on Google MapsOur crews dispatch the same way to these neighbors.
Tell us the issue and an inspection window that works.
