After a Windstorm in Lockport: What to Check on Your Chimney

By Dan Joel, Elite Sweepers Inc.

After a significant storm most people walk the yard, check the gutters, and look at the roof from the driveway. The chimney gets a glance at best, which is unfortunate, because it is the tallest and most exposed thing on the house and it takes the worst of what passes through.

Why chimneys take the brunt

The short answer: they stand above everything else with no shelter on any side.

Wind speed increases with height and the chimney is the highest point. It has no adjacent structure breaking the force, it presents a flat face to every direction, and its most vulnerable components, the cap and the crown, sit right at the top where the exposure is greatest. Falling branches also tend to strike it first for the same reason.

What to look at from the ground

The short answer: the cap, the crown line, the masonry face, and the base.

• The cap. With binoculars, check it is still present, still level, and not visibly dented or shifted. A cap knocked askew can partially block the flue rather than protect it.
• The silhouette. Compare the chimney’s outline to the roofline. Any lean, bulge or separation from the house is serious and should stop fireplace use until it is looked at.
• The masonry face. New cracks, particularly ones that appear suddenly rather than having developed slowly, and any brick that looks displaced.
• The flashing. Lifted or peeled metal at the roof-to-chimney joint, which wind can pull up.
• The ground and gutters. Brick fragments, mortar grit, pieces of concrete from the crown, or bits of the cap in the gutters or flower beds. Material on the ground came from somewhere above.
• Interior ceilings. Fresh staining near where the chimney passes through, which points to flashing damage.

Hail deserves its own mention

The short answer: it damages the crown and cap in ways that are invisible from the ground.

Hail heavy enough to mark a roof also strikes the crown, which is a horizontal concrete surface directly in the line of fire. Fresh cracks there open a direct path for water into the body of the chimney, and they are essentially impossible to assess from the yard. If a storm was severe enough that the roof is being looked at, the chimney top warrants the same attention.

The delayed problem

The short answer: storm damage rarely announces itself, it just starts letting water in.

This is what makes it worth checking rather than waiting. A cracked crown or a displaced cap does not produce any immediate symptom. What it does is admit water, and water in a chimney going into a northern Illinois winter means freeze-thaw cycling in masonry that was sound before the storm. The damage that shows up in spring often started with a storm the previous autumn that nobody connected to it.

When to get it looked at properly

The short answer: after severe weather, which is one of the recognized triggers for a level 2 inspection.

A chimney fire, a building fire, an earthquake or a severe weather event are the circumstances where a full inspection with a camera scan is warranted, because the concern is damage you cannot see. Our chimney inspection page covers what that includes. Cap and crown work is on our chimney caps and crowns page, and masonry and flashing repair on our chimney repair page.

For local scheduling, see our chimney service in Lockport, with costs on our pricing page. Elite Sweepers Inc is insured and bonded, works seven days a week from 7 AM to 7 PM, and gives you the price before starting. Call (708) 432-3977.

Published September 29, 2026