Why Greensboro chimneys need a custom cap
A huge share of Greensboro’s housing stock predates 1960, and those homes came with masonry chimneys that the city’s heavy tree canopy and humid Piedmont summers have been working on for decades. In the older neighborhoods around Fisher Park, Sunset Hills, Westerwood, and the Westridge area, we constantly see 1920s–1950s chimneys with cracked terra cotta flue liners, mortar buildup, and flue openings that don’t measure in clean inches.
That’s exactly why a stamped cap from a home center fails here. Those products are cut to fit a tidy 13”x13” or 21”x21” flue. A real Greensboro chimney might be 14.5” x 17” with enough mortar buildup to push it past 15.5” x 18”. Screw a stamped cap into crumbling century-old mortar and it rattles loose in the first windstorm, or the corners rust through, or it’s simply gone within five years. We provide caps custom-built, to the measurements we take at your house.
Copper on the historic districts, stainless everywhere else
In Fisher Park, Sunset Hills, and Westerwood, where chimneys are visible from the street and the homes are treated as architectural assets, copper is the right call. It patinas from bright orange to bronze to the green you see on old churches, and it will outlast the roof beneath it. On the larger, more complex rooflines of Irving Park and Old Irving Park — multiple dormers, complex valleys, and often two or three flues in a single chimney — we install single multi-flue caps that cover every flue with proper clearance and a drip edge over the masonry, work most contractors won’t even quote.
Out in Lake Jeanette, Adams Farm, and the developments off Battleground Avenue, the 1990s–2000s homes typically have prefabricated chimney chases with manufacturer-specific dimensions. Stainless steel is the smart material there: it stays bright, lasts 30–50+ years, and runs roughly 40% of the cost of copper.
What a proper cap includes
A proper cap is a system, not just a lid on a flue:
- Top plate covering the entire crown, not just the flue opening
- Spark screen to keep embers in and birds, squirrels, and raccoons out — a real issue under Greensboro’s oak and pine canopy
- Drip edge overhanging the masonry on all sides so water sheds away from the brick
- Standoff legs sized for proper draft clearance
- Multi-flue and decorative configurations — finials, custom edge profiles, integral lightning arrestors on request
When the cap is part of a bigger chimney problem
A high percentage of Greensboro’s pre-1960 homes have chimneys that need more than a new cap. We assess the whole chimney first. If you’ve got water staining inside the firebox, the leak might be the cracked concrete crown, failing step and counter flashing at the roof, or open mortar joints needing repointing — all common on the layered, multi-roof-generation homes in the historic core. If the cap is fine and the crown is the problem, we’ll tell you that. If you’re already getting a new roof, we put the cap on while the crew is up there.
Why Greensboro homeowners choose Mid Atlantic
- 25 minutes away on Reynolda Road in Winston-Salem — local accountability, not a national chain
- custom-built to your chimney’s actual measurements, in copper and stainless
- Historic district aware — familiar with Fisher Park’s preservation guidelines for visible exterior work
- In-house W-2 crews, no subcontractors
- Owens Corning Platinum Preferred, A+ BBB, 4.8★ on Google and Facebook
- 3-year workmanship warranty, in writing
Schedule a Greensboro chimney cap measurement
Call (336) 671-5208 or request an estimate online. We take measurements at your house, install, and install on a follow-up visit — usually scheduling a Greensboro visit within 48 hours.